Digital geographies II: All about AI. What’s old? What’s new? Where to?

Abstract

The last 2 years have seen a marked rise of geographical work engaging with generative artificial intelligence (AI) across the discipline. Despite this recent surge of interest, there is a much longer history of geographers contributing to debates on AI and actively asking what automated technologies mean for the discipline and what geography can add to our knowledge on the implications of AI. In this report I provide a brief historical overview of discussions on AI within geography before illustrating how geographers have been thinking through the epistemological, empirical and methodological implications of AI. The report points to future research directions and opportunities that AI presents to geography alongside the need for geographers to continue to ask critical questions of AI and actively engage with what these questions reveal.