How Artificial Intelligence Can Support the Global Goals
By Regina Park as part of the 2018 +SocialGood series on emerging technologies
Artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly grown from a sci-fi horror trope to a living, breathing field with the proven ability to better our lives. Several startups or research institutions are focusing on the functions of AI as potential movers and shakers for social good.
Here are some examples of AI projects that bring us closer to the SDGs:
SDG2: Zero Hunger
Internet of Things (IoT) agricultural advances
In India, the agricultural sector employs around 50 percent of the country’s population and produces more than 200 million tons of food grain, according to Tata Communications. With a little help from technology to improve supply chains and farming practices, India’s fertile soil has the potential to yield far more.
The government has partnered with third parties to bolster the use of drones to administer pesticides. Using these drones to collect additional data on crop health and soil conditions, then relaying the message to farmers’ smartphones could easily boost output with very little additional input.
This drone-based informational relay system has already been tested in Brazil to check chemical levels in the soil and determine the right levels of irrigation, with positive results.
SDG3: Healthcare
nEmesis system
Complaining to your followers on Twitter when you feel sick can be more than just therapeutic — it can help save others from foodborne diseases. The nEmesis app, developed at the University of Rochester, uses AI and natural language to trawl through millions of tweets and pinpoint ones that point towards food poisoning.
A cluster of suspicious tweets makes it easy for nEmesis’s algorithm to triangulate the geographic epicenter of the sickness and report that information to the local health department.
When co-creator Adam Sadilek tested nEmesis in Las Vegas, the app provided accurate and timely information to health inspectors, likely preventing 9,000 incidents of food poisoning and 557 hospitalizations over just three months.
“This happens to be restaurants, but the method can also be used for bedbugs,” Sadilek said in a press statement. “Similarly, you can look what people tweet about after they visit their doctor or hospital. We’re just beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible.”
At the moment, nEmesis is in beta and not available to the public. Sadilek and his team are currently workshopping the app with a grant from the CDC.
SDG13: Climate Action
Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security (PAWS)
Poaching continues to threaten the long-term survival of endangered species such as tigers, elephants, and rhinos despite the best efforts from conservation agencies. With AI systems like PAWS on their side, wildlife authorities may finally be able to overcome their lack of manpower and funds to catch poachers red-handed.
Using the latest in game theory and behavior modelling, PAWS throws basic information about a protected area and previous poaching activities into its algorithm to predict where poachers are most likely to strike in the future. PAWS then calculates a few patrol routes that have the greatest possibility of deterring poachers.
A preliminary test run was done in Uganda’s gigantic Queen Elizabeth National Park over a period of five months. PAWS successfully predicted where snaring activity would occur and what routes would best use scarce resources and manpower over 450 square kilometers of land.
SDG16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
The Oyoon project
Oyoon in Arabic means “eyes,” and there is no better word to describe the functions of Dubai’s new AI-powered surveillance system. Freshly launched on January 2018, the Oyoon project uses a combination of AI algorithms, data analysis, and face recognition to prevent crime and ensure rapid responses from police.
The AI system scans through live CCTV footage and makes it instantly searchable, negating the need to have anyone man the camera feeds. For example, if there was a need to find a man wearing a football jersey, typing in “football jersey” would bring up relevant shots in mere seconds.
The project also comes with microphone-enabled cameras that can communicate with the public, reducing the need for human to human intervention.
“The project is an effective translation of the UAE’s strategy for artificial intelligence to achieve its objectives of relying on services, data analysis and smart application in various fields of work efficiency and effectively,” Major General Al Mansouri said.
AI startups like Boulder AI are trying to eliminate the need for intervention completely with preemptive AI. The idea is to program an AI system to alert authorities with a notification when the algorithm notices suspicious behavior such as “crouching, pushing, over the shoulder glances.”
With a new field like AI, the path ahead may sometimes seem more murky than bright. But by refusing to see the potential in new tech, we would be doing more harm than good.
As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at ECOSOC 2017, “Artificial Intelligence has the potential to accelerate progress towards a dignified life, in peace and prosperity, for all people. The time has arrived for all of us — governments, industry and civil society — to consider how artificial intelligence will affect our future.”
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