The VII AMMCS International Conference
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada | August 17-21, 2026
AMMCS 2026 ALife Conference Semi-Plenary Speaker
The North Star Imperative: Aligning Artificial Intelligence, Planetary Health and Human Flourishing
Dr. Courtney Howard, University of Calgary
X, August X, X, Room: X
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming humanity's ability to understand, predict, and optimize complex adaptive systems. But as these capabilities accelerate, a profound new question is emerging: if we can optimize almost anything, what should we optimize for?
In this keynote, Dr. Courtney Howard explores how AI is creating not only unprecedented technological capability, but also an unprecedented need for societal clarity. As increasingly powerful optimization systems become embedded within our economies, governments, health systems, and communities, the limiting factor is no longer computational power—it is our ability to define the future we are trying to create.
Drawing on emergency medicine, planetary health, complexity science, and wellbeing economics, Dr. Howard introduces The North Star Imperative: the idea that as humanity's power grows, so too must our clarity of purpose. She proposes that long-term wellbeing for all people and the planet provides a compelling North Star for societies operating within planetary boundaries.
The keynote will explore how wellbeing emerges from the interactions among ecological, social, governance, economic, and healthcare systems, and why this systems perspective fundamentally changes how we think about resilience, prosperity, and societal success. It will examine how multidimensional wellbeing frameworks can help governments, organizations, and communities align around shared goals while reducing silos and enabling more integrated decision-making.
The session will also explore how AI and complexity science may help societies identify "multisolving" opportunities—interventions that improve health, strengthen communities, reduce emissions, enhance resilience, and generate positive feedback across interconnected systems.
Rather than asking only how intelligent our technologies can become, this keynote asks a more fundamental question: How do we use increasingly powerful tools to build a future in which both people and the planet can flourish?
Dr Courtney Howard is an Emergency Physician in Yellowknives Dene Territory in the Canadian subarctic, a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Calgary and the founder of POWER—PlanetaryHealth Organizations for Wellbeing, Equity and Regeneration. The Chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance and President-Elect of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr Howard works from the bedside to global boardrooms to center the health of people and the planet in practice and policy.
Dr. Howard has researched menstrual cups and the health impacts of wildfires, and was the first woman president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. She has led policy and advocacy work regarding climate-resilient health systems, social tipping points and the health sector, ecoanxiety, vaccine equity, active transport, plant-rich diets, fossil fuel divestment, carbon pricing, coal power phase-out, and the understudied local health impacts of fossil fuel extraction.
The 2018 International Policy Director for the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change and longtime policy brief author for Canada, she is on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Lancet Planetary Health and the Journal of Climate Change and Health. She recently completed a Master of Public Policy Degree at the Blavatnik School at Oxford University where she focused on transitions to an economy centered around wellbeing, and is writing a book on that topic. In 2024 she led the Roadmap for Planetary Health and Sustainable Healthcare that was passed unanimously by Canada's medical school deans. She has two daughters and loves to dance.