*"Issue: *Current roadmaps for development and deployment of A/IS are not aligned with or guided by their impact in the most important challenges of humanity, defined in the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which collectively aspire to create a more equal world of prosperity, peace, planet protection, and human dignityfor all people.4
## BackgroundSDGs promoting prosperity, peace, planet protection, human
dignity
The human right to be valued and treated with respect because of one's personhood.
, and respect for human rights of all, apply to HIC and LMIC alike. Yet ensuring that the benefits of A/IS will accrue to humanity as a whole, leaving “no one behind”, requires an ethical commitment to global citizenship and well-being, and a conscious effort to counter the nature of the tech economy, with its tendency to concentrate wealth within high income populations. Implementation of the SDGs should benefit excluded sectors of society in every country, regardless of A/IS infrastructure.“The Road to
Dignity
The human right to be valued and treated with respect because of one's personhood.
by 2030” document of the UN Secretary General reports on resources and methods for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and emphasizes the importance of science, technology, and innovation for a sustainable future.5 The UN Secretary General posits that:“A sustainable future will require that we act now to phase out unsustainable technologies and to invest in innovation and in the development of clean and sound technologies for sustainable development. We must ensure that they are fairly priced, broadly disseminated and fairly absorbed, including to and by developing countries.” (para. 120)A/IS are among the technologies that can play an important role in the solution of the deep social problems plaguing our global civilization, contributing to the transformation of society away from an unsustainable, unequal socioeconomic system, towards one that realizes the vision of universal human
dignity
The human right to be valued and treated with respect because of one's personhood.
, peace, and prosperity.However, with all the potential benefits ofA/IS, there are also risks. For example, givenA/IS technology’s immense power needs, without new sources of sustainable energy harnessed to power A/IS in the future, there is a risk that it will increase fossil fuel use and have a negative impact on the environment and the climate.While 45% of the world’s population is not connected to the internet, they are not necessarily excluded from A/IS’ potential benefits: in LMIC mobile networks can provide data for A/IS applications. However, only those connected are likely to benefit from the income-producing potential of internet technologies. In 2017, internet penetration in HIC left behind certain portions of the population often in rural or remote areas; 12% of U.S. residents and 20% of residents across Europe were unable to access the internet. In Asia with its concentration of LMIC, 52% of the population, on average, had no access, a statistic skewed by the large population of China, where internet penetration reached 45% of the population. In numerous other countries in the region, 99% of residents had no access. This nearly total exclusion also exists in several countries in Africa, where the overall internet penetration is only 35%: 2 of every 3 residents in Africa have no access.6 Those with no internet access also do not generate data needed to “train” A/IS, and are thereby excluded from benefits of the technology, the development of which risks systematic discriminatory bias, particularly against people from minority populations, and those living in rural areas, or in low-income countries. As a comparison, one study estimated that “in the US, just one home automation product can generate a data point every six seconds.”7 In Mozambique, where about 90% of the population lack internet access, “the average household generates zero digital data points.”8 With mobile phones generating much of the data needed for developing A/IS applications in LMIC, unequal phone ownership may build in bias. For example, there is a risk of discrimination against women, who across LMIC are 14% less likely than men to own a mobile phone, and in South Asia where 38% are less likely to own a mobile phone.9
## RecommendationsThe current range of A/IS applications in sectors crucial to the SDGs, and to excluded populations everywhere, should be studied, with the strengths, weaknesses, and potential of the most significant recent applications analyzed, and the best ones developed at scale. Specific objectives to consider include:
Identifying and experimenting withA/IS technologies relevant to the SDGs,such as: big data for development relevant to, for example, agriculture and medical tele-diagnosis; geographic information systems needed in public service planning, disaster prevention, emergency planning, and disease monitoring; control systems used in, for example, naturalizing intelligent cities through energy and traffic control and management of urban agriculture; applications that promote human empathy focused on diminishing violence and exclusion and increasing well-being.
Promoting the potential role of A/IS in sustainable development by collaboration between national and international government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in technology sectors.
Analyzing the cost of and proposing strategies for publicly providing internet access forall, as a means of diminishing the gap inA/IS’ potential benefit to humanity, particularly between urban and rural populations in HIC and LMIC alike.
Investing in the documentation and dissemination of innovative applications ofA/IS that advance the resolution of identified societal issues and the SDGs.
Researching sustainable energy to power A/IS computational capacity.
Investing in the development of transparent monitoring frameworks to track the concrete results of donations by international organizations, corporations, independent agencies, and the State, to ensure efficiency and accountability in applied A/IS.
Developing national legal, policy, and fiscal measures to encourage competition in theA/IS domestic markets and the flourishingof scalable A/IS applications.
Integrating the SDGs into the core of private sector business strategies and adding SDG indicators to companies’ key performance indicators, going beyond corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Applying the well-being indicators10 to evaluate A/IS’ impact from multiple perspectives in HIC and LMIC alike.
## Further reading
R. Van Est and J.B.A. Gerritsen, with assistance of L. Kool, Human Rights in the Robot Age: Challenges arising from the use of Robots, Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality Expert Report written for the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), The Hague: Rathenau Instituut
World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Human Rights 2016-18, “White Paper: How to Prevent Discriminatory Outcomes in Machine Learning,” World Economic Forum, March
United Nations General Assembly, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (A/RES/70/1: 21 October 2015) Preamble. http://www.un.org/ en/development/desa/population/migration/ generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/ A_RES_70_1_E.pdf.
United Nations Global Pulse, Big Data for Development: Challenges and Opportunities,
"p139-140