Webinar: Does Geospatial AI Promise an Ethical Future for Spatial Analytics? Learn more February 8

ASU’s Spatial Analysis Research Center, or SPARC, in partnership with the American Association of Geographers, invites you to a webinar on Tuesday, February 8, 2022, to explore conversations over the ethical issues that arise in geographic research, particularly Geospatial Artificial Intelligence.

Does GeoAI Promise an Ethical Future for Spatial Analytics?
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
8–10:30 a.m.
Register to attend

In recent years, Geospatial Artificial Intelligence, or GeoAI, has become the focus of a new wave of data-driven spatial analytics. These techniques have played an increasing role in understanding the ever-evolving social and environmental systems found in the real world, as well as the interaction between them, such as modeling the spread of infectious diseases, quantifying the melting rate of sea ice in the Arctic, and predicting presidential voting outcomes.

However, because of its data-driven and theory-free nature, GeoAI research possibly generates as much skepticism as enthusiasm. Recently numerous aspects of scientific practice have come under scrutiny, and concerns have been raised about the degree to which they reflect ethical ideals. Many of the questions raised in the early 1990s about GIS—equity in training and access, bias and oversimplification in representation, the potential for surveillance — can also be raised about GeoAI.