Reference no: EM133758010 , Length: word count:2000

Innovation and Creativity in Business Analytics

Report: Complexity Science and AI

Your Task

Students are to write a 2,000-word report using on Complexity Science principles.

Assessment Description

In this assessment, you will be writing an individual report that encourages you to be creative with business analytics, whilst also developing a response to a brief containing a "wicked problem", to be addressed using Complexity Science principles and Artificial Intelligence.

The wicked problem relates to the inter- relationship between political unrest, armed conflict and climate change.

The history of humanity is marked with political unrest and armed conflict. However as technology advances and population increases, political unrest and armed conflict can have a more devastating effect on climate, and conversely climate change can have an impact on political unrest and armed conflict. For example, forced migration can place a burden on the natural resources within a geographical area when providing for displaced people. In more recent times, examples can be found in parts of Africa and Asia and lately, the movement of Middle Eastern people displaced by war and political regimes.

Complexity Science deals with the simple rules that underpin emergent behavior. Once these rules are indentified and understood, the question becomes how complexity science can assist with generating solutions by connecting seemingly unrelated concepts.

The impact that conflict can have on climate and agricultural resources and vice versa is depicted in the diagram below:

Vesco et al. (2021) found that in agriculture-dependent countries, the growing season is generally a time of heightened conflict activity. There can be a link between drought and civil conflict in agriculture-dependent countries, where the increasing concentration of agricultural production in some parts of a country may reflect increasing economic inequality and potentially lead to political unrest.

In another context, many countries are considering ways to mitigate climate change by curbing greenhouse gas emissions or in other ways manipulating the atmosphere to minimize global warming and related effects. Government policies and measures that directly interfere with human practices, preferences, and livelihoods, can be are perceived as unfair, and also carry significant potential for adverse social effects, including heighted chances of political unrest In this way, the application of complexity science principles and AI could be used to identify and deal with the simple rules governing the Interface between climate change, use of land for agricultural purposes and political unrest.

There a range of data sets that can be accessed for demonstrating a correlation between population growth, political unrest, armed conflict and climate change. An initial data set is provided on the impact of climate change on the incidence of natural disasters over a longitudinal time frame.

Vesco, Paola; Matija Kovacic, Malcolm Mistry & Mihai Croicu (2021) Climate variability, crop and conflict: Exploring the impacts of spatial concentration in agricultural production. Journal of Peace Research 58(1): 98-113.

Assessment Instructions
Imagine that you are a United Nations expert in complexity science and manage staff using artificial intelligence.

You are to consider Initiatives for dealing with climate change in a world where continued population growth and political turmoil is seen as contributing to adverse climate change and conversely adverse climate change could be seen as a factor leading to political unrest.

Your recommended initiatives are to United National Security Council should be based on data, for which you have been provided an initial data file:

There is a need to research, analyse and graphically display data sets, in addition to the data file provided above, to support your findings in your research report.

Your recommended initiatives need to apply complexity science principles and should also leverage third party reports, of which one such report is provided blow, labeled:

There is a need to access additional third party reports to support your findings in your research report.

Your report should have:

An introduction (200 words)

A section discussing the association between climate change and political unrest, based on application of data sets and third party reports (600 words)

A section on the role of complexity science in helping to unlock the rules that can underpin connections between political unrest and climate change.(200 words)

A section recommending how artificial intelligence can be used in conjunction with complexity science to better manage climate change and its interface with political unrest, based on application of data sets and third party reports (800 words)

Conclusion and recommendations (200 words)