How can we design AI and algorithms that support marginalised communities and the planet? This documentary explores technology’s entanglement with climate change and conservation.
Join us deep beneath the ocean and in some of our most valuable wild forests, as scientists, key thinkers, and everyday Australians grapple with a crucial question – can we create a future where the marginalised, Earth, flora and fauna benefit from the rise of Artificial Intelligence?
AI is a tool – our future depends on how you use it
Climate change is the defining crisis of our time, coupled with widening social and economic inequality, and it is happening even more quickly than we feared. But we are far from powerless.
Tech industry, government consultancies and the corporate world most often propose techno fixes to these parallel crises that would widen the gap between rich and poor and blindly disconnect us further from our connection to the natural world.
The Hidden Costs of AI
AI is often seen as a solution to global challenges, but its hidden costs are mounting. From resource extraction and vast energy consumption to offshore e-waste dumping and outsourced labour, its lifecycle raises serious ethical and environmental concerns. Despite the belief that smart tech is inherently green, its reality is stark: mineral shortages, escalating e-waste, and immense energy and water use. The dominant response, tech-driven fixes, often deepens inequality and disconnects us from nature rather than addressing root issues.
We cannot consume our way out of the climate crisis, but we can rethink AI. By prioritising sustainability, ethics, and human values such as care, technology can serve both people and the planet rather than depleting them.
We cannot consume our way out of the climate crisis, but we can rethink AI. By prioritising sustainability, ethics, and human values such as care, technology can serve both people and the planet rather than depleting them.
Jeni Lee, ADM+S Filmmaker
Listening to Whales: A Call from the Deep
Marine scientist Dr Olaf Meynecke is uniting citizen scientists, Google AI, and marine biology to decode whale songs. His research uses underwater microphones to track humpback whales, revealing how they respond to climate change and noise pollution—insights that could help protect ocean life.
In 2025, Dr Olaf will lead a team embedding hydrophones along Australia’s East Coast, using AI to translate whale communication. His mission is clear: by truly listening to nature, we can collaborate with technology and other species to safeguard our oceans.
Watching Over Our Forests
Wilderness Society scientist Rachel Fletcher helped develop Watch on Nature, a citizen-powered platform exposing deforestation by the beef, paper, timber, and mining industries. Using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, citizen scientists track land clearing in real time, with drones verifying illegal activity to hold governments and corporations accountable. Now, the Wilderness Society is developing an automated tool to scale up vegetation change detection.
Olaf and Rachel understand that AI is not a magic bullet. They approach AI tools with a critical eye, weighing both the challenges and benefits of integrating these emerging technologies into their work.
The Entangled doco is due for screen release in late 2026/ early 2027 .
Research Team
Film maker Jeni Lee; Produced by Bianca Vallentine; Research consultant: Sarah Pink; Story Consultant Ashlee Page
This film is funded by the People programme in the ARC Centre for Excellence Automated Decision Making + Society.
Contact: Jeni Lee
Email: jeni.lee@monash.edu
