Leveraging innovative AI solutions to address SDGs

AI innovations have great potential to advance Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The “Top 100: International list of Artificial intelligence solutions for sustainable development for the benefit of humanity” identified by the International Research Centre on AI (IRCAI) under the auspices of UNESCO, recognizes outstanding AI-based innovative solutions which address the SDGs. Examples include project “Rewire – Socially Responsible AI for Online Safety” that develops AI tools for keeping people safe by automatically detecting whether online content contains hate.

To further support AI innovations that advance the SDGs, UNESCO and IRCAI are developing an evaluation framework to identify the ingredients of innovative AI based solutions addressing the SDGs. The development and implementation process for this framework will heed special attention to human rights and gender equality issues. To this end, UNESCO and IRCAI jointly hosted workshop on 13 May’22 to gather collective insights from experts.

The key objectives for the development of the UNESCO/IRCAI Framework on Innovation and AI include:

• Safeguarding and promoting human rights and values like transparency in the development and use of AI
• Identifying business incentives of social impact for the private sector
• Ensuring rating and evaluation metrics for identifying good practices are coherent and transparent

The prototype UNESCO/IRCAI Framework on Innovation and AI proposes the following 8 criteria: 1) Vision; 2) AI Integration/Adoption; 3) Impact/Measurement; 4) Transferability; 5) Human Rights 6) Business/Revenue Model; 7) Implementation/Team; and 8) Diversity and Inclusion. The Framework is being conceived as a dynamic “living document” to stimulate continuous deliberation and discussion on leveraging AI based innovative solutions to address the SDGs.

Experts in the workshop agreed that the private sector needs a strong and clear business model to spark greater interest in aligning AI innovation with the SDGs. Specifically, some experts argued that creating a certification for net-positive impact on SDGs would be a useful way to help companies navigate the hierarchy of best practices.

Another emphasis by the experts was on meaningfully engaging with diverse communities throughout the lifecycle of AI product development and deployment.

The framework will be tested and refined based on the next IRCAI AI solutions open call.