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Workshop: Computing and AI Through the Lens of Degrowth

member portrait Eshta Bhardwaj PhD Student, Faculty of Information
March 01, 2025
talk event

JSD 2024-25 Workshop Series: Workshop 3
Online, March 21, 2025
Pre-session 9:30-10:00am ET
Workshop 10:00am-12:00pm ET
Stay and chat till 12:30pm ET

The Just Sustainability Design Lab at University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information invites you to join us for an online workshop session on “Computing and AI Through the Lens of Degrowth” on March 21, 2025 from 10am-12pm ET.

Degrowth is a coherent framework for reorganizing social and economic relations(1–4) that has significant implications for the role and meaning of technology development(5,6), including in computing(7). The field of computing is now beginning to grapple with degrowth and post-growth(8,9) perspectives (e.g. an upcoming CHI workshop and the LIMITS workshops).

In this informal workshop, we bring degrowth perspectives to bear on information technology and computing, including AI. We will briefly share recent research from the JSD lab on Limits to AI Growth (preprint) and preliminary results on modelling the impact of AI on planetary Limits to Growth, then frame the conversation around ‘releasing technology from growth’ and open the discussion. We welcome further brief talks, lightning talks, or discussion prompts around the intersection of degrowth and computing.

The main purpose of this workshop is to foster a conversation about what it means to take a degrowth lens to computing and IT, including AI, and to make new connections between researchers who are interested in these questions.

Please register here for the workshop: https://forms.office.com/r/nhZ7tmNnnr.

The workshop itself is not an introduction to the framework of degrowth - we organize the conversation with the idea that everyone is familiar with it. But we will preface the main workshop session with a half-hour “Ask me Anything about Degrowth” session in which Christoph would do his best to respond to any questions you have. Please indicate your interest in attending the AMA, in the registration form.

Agenda:

  1. Optional: AMA about degrowth (9:30-10:00am, Christoph)
  2. Workshop introduction (10:00-10:20am, Christoph)
  3. Research talks (4) and discussion (10:20-11:20am)
    • Limits to AI Growth (Eshta Bhardwaj)
    • Impact of AI on Limits to Growth (Nara Guliyeva)
    • Degrowth: Releasing Tech from Growth (Christoph Becker)
    • Cooperative Approaches for Data Platforms (Nadia Mariyan Smith and Nils Bonfils)
  4. Other research, lightning talks, discussion (11:20-11:45am)
  5. Wrap up: what’s next (11:45am-12:00pm)
  6. Optional: Stay and chat (12:00-12:30pm)

Eshta Bhardwaj: Eshta Bhardwaj is a PhD student at the Faculty of Information studying data practices in machine learning. Her research interests include examining how techniques from data curation can improve data practices to increase accountability, transparency, and make ML model development more sustainable and resource-efficient. In this talk, she presents her recent paper which is a systemic analysis of the AI scaling landscape and its limiting factors (e.g., data availability) using the modelling constructs of system dynamics.

Nara Guliyeva: Nara Guliyeva is currently a master’s student majoring in Human-Centered Data Science at the iSchool. She holds a Master’s degree from Columbia University and has worked at the United Nations Development Programme, focusing on innovation and sustainability. Her research explores how AI growth influence future-forward projections within the World3 Model, which examines long-term resource constraints, pioneered by the “The Limits to Growth” study. She investigates how AI-driven advancements—reliant on energy-intensive data centers, finite raw materials, and extensive financial investments—create feedback loops that may accelerate resource depletion and pollution. In this talk, she examines the role of AI growth in affecting World3 Model projections and invites discussion on incorporating AI-driven trends into World3 modeling.

Christoph Becker: Christoph Becker is Full Professor at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, where he leads the Just Sustainability Design lab, a Fellow of the SDG Scholars Academy at the University of Toronto, and a member of the School of the Environment. His transdisciplinary program of research in responsible computing helps enact meaningful and lasting change in computing research and practice to meet the urgent need for sustainability and social justice.

Nadia Mariyan Smith: Nadia Mariyan Smith is a master’s student specializing in User Experience Design at the Faculty of Information. With a background in community work, they are interested in justice-oriented, more-than-human design approaches that emphasize collective well-being and ecological sustainability. In this talk, they will discuss a project they are working on with Christoph Becker and Nils Bonfils on determining the feasibility of a data platform cooperative for people living with diabetes.

Nils Bonfils: Nils is a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at UofT. His research interest lies at the intersection of Computer Science, STS and the Environment. His current research is about improving current data about historical flood events in the GTA by leveraging digital newspaper archives, furthermore this project allows him to think about different ways of understanding and representing data about floods. Exploring alterities has always been an important aspect of research for him.

References

  1. Kallis, G., Paulson, S., D’Alisa, G. & Demaria, F. The Case for Degrowth. (Polity, UK, 2020).
  2. Hickel, J. The anti-colonial politics of degrowth. Polit. Geogr. 88, 102404 (2021).
  3. Hickel, J. What does degrowth mean? A few points of clarification. Globalizations 18, 1105–1111 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1812222
  4. Hickel, J. Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World. (Penguin Random House, 2020).
  5. Pansera, M. & Fressoli, M. Innovation without growth: Frameworks for understanding technological change in a post-growth era. Organization 28, 380–404 (2021).
  6. Kostakis, V., Niaros, V. & Giotitsas, C. Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development. Sustain. Sci. 18, 2309–2322 (2023).
  7. Kwet, M. Digital Degrowth: Technology in the Age of Survival. (Pluto Press, London, 2024).
  8. Savini, F. Post-Growth, Degrowth, the Doughnut, and Circular Economy: A Short Guide for Policymakers. J. City Clim. Policy Econ. 2, 113–123 (2024). https://jccpe.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/jccpe-2023-0004
  9. Kallis, G. et al. Post-growth: the science of wellbeing within planetary boundaries. Lancet Planet. Health 9, e62–e78 (2025).
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