AI and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 11 analysed the positive and negative impact of AI on climate change and offered some recommendations to increase the former and decrease the latter. Climate change is one of the areas where AI is being used to support the UN SDGs. As we saw in Chapter 9, initiatives relying on AI to deliver socially beneficial outcomes (so-called AI4SG) are on the rise. However, existing attempts to understand and foster AI4SG initiatives have so far been limited by the lack of normative analyses and a shortage of empirical evidence. Following the analyses provided in Chapters 9–11, this chapter addresses these limits by supporting use of the United Nations’ SDGs as a benchmark for tracing the scope and spread of AI4SG. The chapter also presents in more detail a database of AI4SG projects (already mentioned in Chapter 11) collected using this benchmark. Several key insights are discussed, including the extent to which different SDGs are being addressed. The goal of the chapter is to facilitate the identification of pressing problems that, if left unaddressed, risk hampering the effectiveness of AI4SG initiatives.