New technological applications make it possible to use data to track poverty or to measure and predict pollution in cities with high levels of accuracy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can benefit 79% of the goals that make up the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations. This means that AI can contribute to 134 of the 169 specific goals that must be met by 2030.

The revelation was made by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) at an event with 40 UN partners, which took place last Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland, on the theme "The Role of AI in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals".

The ITU points out that the emergence of AI is progressing rapidly with wide-ranging impacts in many sectors. In the case of the SDGs, these technologies could contribute to achieving the goals of sustainable cities (SDG 11) and climate change (SDG 13) in particular.

Research carried out by an international consortium, presented at this event, concluded that AI can have a beneficial impact on 79% of the SDG targets, but can, on the other hand, inhibit 35% of them (59 targets), without specifying which ones.

The research concluded that environmental goals attract the greatest positive contributions, social goals the least positive and economic goals require more research in terms of potential AI effects.

The study noted that AI enables new technological applications, such as the use of satellite data to track poverty (SDG 1) and that gender gaps in data and the AI workforce need to be addressed to enable SDG 5 (gender equality).

All the targets of SDG 11 on cities can be positively affected by AI. Machine learning can be used to reproduce, measure and predict pollution in cities and specific urban areas with high levels of accuracy, says the ITU.

The speakers explored the potential of AI to reveal hidden links between the SDGs in order to optimize policy responses for better solutions. Among the numerous positive applications of AI for the SDGs, the matching of electricity supply and demand, enabling better climate models and identifying areas of high concentration of plastic pollution also stand out.

But technology is not without impact. The current use of electricity by the information and communication technologies sector is 1% of total use, a figure that is expected to rise to 20% by 2030, says the ITU.

It also became clear that the rapid development of AI needs to be supported in the area of regulation and supervision to enable sustainable development. Failure to do so could result in gaps in transparency, safety and ethical standards, leading to outcomes at odds with the SDGs, concludes the ITU, quoted by Negócios newspaper.