AI is increasingly being used to deal with climate change, but it has its own emissions problem

On a farm in St. Peters Bay, P.E.I., a black four-wheeled rover with two extended arms trundles through a row of thigh-high green leaves, its giant tires kicking up the red dirt of a potato field. It looks as though it belongs more at home on a dusty, red Martian landscape than on a farm.

“Actually, there were a few people who stopped on the road to see what was going on,” said Aitazaz Farooque, the interim associate dean of the University of Prince Edward Island’s (UPEI) school of climate change and adaptation.

Meet the AgriRobot, a robot that has been trained using artificial intelligence to