As many of the extravagant claims around artificial intelligence have failed to materialize in the last few years, it’s tempting to regard the technology as having had a limited impact on the world.  A new study from KTH Royal Institute of Technology suggests otherwise, and argues that AI has played a significant role in our meeting of the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals established in 2015.

The Sustainable Development Goals are themselves broken down into 169 individual targets that cover a wide range of issues from the environment to economics and society.  The paper argues that 134 of these targets could benefit significantly from AI, with the remainder weakened by the involvement of AI.

The authors believe that urban dwellers are especially likely to gain from the deployment of AI, as they suggest it will make cities safer and more inclusive while also improving urban air pollution.  The technology also holds significant promise in terms of lifting people out of poverty and providing cleaner, more affordable energy.  The flip side is that AI will require huge amounts of energy to power the data centers that underpin the technology.

Social justice

AI is slightly more risky in areas such as political stability, economic inequality, treatment of minorities and unbiased elections, with the paper highlighting the need for ethical scrutiny and transparency in the development of AI if these risks are to be overcome.

“There’s an underlying risk of prejudice when AI evaluates and predicts human behavior,” the authors explain.

They also urge caution in terms of the impact AI can have on political stability at both a global and local level, and believe that legislative frameworks will be required to help ensure that AI doesn’t have any nefarious side effects and that society as a whole benefits.

“Regulatory oversight should be preceded by regulatory insight, where policymakers have sufficient understanding of AI challenges to be able to formulate sound policy. Developing such insight is even more urgent than oversight, since policy formulated without understanding is likely to be ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst,” they conclude.