We are at the start of a commercial arms race in artificial intelligence that has thrilled some, and alarmed others. For many, it's both.

There's no shortage of heady proclamations about where the technology is headed. Google CEO Sundar Pachai calls AI “more profound than fire or electricity.”

We are in the middle of a period of exuberance in AI, which will inevitably lead to some kind of market correction. But the technology will be transformative. There are dozens of use cases for AI in energy already in operation today across the grid, mobility, and industry.

The emergence of AI will have an enormous impact on creativity, corporate structures, and economic productivity – and on the engine that drives our economy, energy. Will we use it in the right way?

This week, we feature two conversations from our recent Transition-AI conference in Boston. 

Priya Donti, the executive director of Climate Change AI, describes the best-case and worst-case scenarios for an AI-infused energy sector. 

And Savannah Goodman, a data and software climate solutions lead at Google, describes the role for machine learning in optimizing renewables and data centers.

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