Novel Data, AI, and Disasters
As the impact of the climate crisis continues to accelerate, new data sources and AI tools are also quickly changing the ability of agencies and communities to understand, respond and adapt. Human mobility data opens up new forms of real-time social scientific insight just as the proliferation of new geospatial data through micro-satellites and drones expands dynamic insight into patterns of change in built and natural environments. Generalized image segmentation, large language models, and new forms of agentic AI likewise potentially deepen and quicken the pace of analytics and insight. Each new development also entails new challenges in terms of privacy, data protection, ethics, and bias, among other issues. This panel engages a discussion between technologists, data providers, and humanitarians to explore these interdependencies between novel data sources and emerging AI models for disaster response and resilience.
Organized by: ESRI, Direct Relief, New York State University, NIED and DroneBird
