“What’s your opinion on AI?” seems to be the main question circulating office corridors these days. I was, until recently, unaware there was such a strong divide and unsure of whether to jump on the bandwagon or dismiss the whole concept.
There’s no doubt about it: artificial intelligence is on the verge of transforming the way we do business. It has already crept from research labs into business, industrial and professional applications. But AI still has a long way to go.
Curious, I decided to jump on the bandwagon. I recently attended the AI for Good Global Summit, organised by the International Telecommunication Union. Held in Geneva each year, the summit focuses on how AI can be used to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, such as promoting clean energy, climate action, sustainable infrastructure and other global development priorities.
The conference showcased a myriad of applications on how AI can be harnessed for the betterment of society, from advancements in human robotics and healthcare to innovations in vision and language processing.
There seems to be one common outcome: AI can increase productivity and efficiency across a range of sectors. During his opening speech, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres specifically mentioned education, healthcare and planetary health as sectors for increased efficiency.
The conference featured quite a few sophisticated robots, some shaped like dogs or cats, others humans, designed to assist us in our everyday tasks to improve our quality of life. But AI is doing so much more than that.
“Robot dogs are very impressive breakthroughs of science technologies. But what problems are they solving?” said Pelonomi Moiloa, CEO of Lelapa AI – a startup building AI for African languages.
Among some of the groundbreaking technologies showcased was the AI-powered exoskeleton developed by Wandercraft, which aims to transform the lives of people with paralysis.
Leveraging advancements in robotics and AI, Wandercraft’s exoskeleton enables those with mobility impairments to ‘walk’ again.
As Earth Observation Editor at EJR-Quartz, I was particularly interested in how developments in AI can help create a more sustainable world. One of the presentations highlighted GraphCast, a state-of-the-art AI model able to deliver 10-day weather predictions in under a minute.
GraphCast claims to take a significant step forward in AI for weather prediction, offering more accurate and efficient forecasts, and opening paths to support decision-making critical to the needs of our industries and societies.
Pioneering the use of AI in weather forecasting will benefit billions of people in their everyday lives. By developing new tools and accelerating research, Google DeepMind hopes AI can empower the global community to tackle our greatest environmental challenges.
Anna Koivuniemi, Head of Google DeepMind Impact Accelerator, said, “AI can’t save climate change. But humans can.“
Another presentation showcased Earth Virtualization Engines (EVE) which uses AI to unleash the vast amounts of information encoded in the most advanced digital representations of the Earth, aiming to empower people to respond to the urgent challenge of climate change.
Despite AI’s seemingly countless benefits, it also comes with its risks. There were other interesting speeches about AI is doing the exact opposite of what the conference proposes.
While AI technologies continue becoming highly sophisticated, the security concerns linked with their use and the possibility for misuse also rise. Threat actors can leverage the same AI tools meant for human good to commit malicious acts like scams, fraud, deepfakes and more.
In addition, the development, maintenance and disposal of AI technology also comes with a large carbon footprint. The power demands of the huge data centres that underpin the AI revolution will only keep growing.
Nearly half of the global population cannot participate in the AI leap due to technological disparities between advanced and developing economies.
Doreen Bogdon-Martin, head of the UN International Telecommunications Union, commented, “In 2024, in the age of AI, in the age of unimaginable opportunities, one-third of humanity remains completely offline, excluded from the AI revolution without a voice. What we in this room take for granted remains completely foreign to 2.6 billion people around the world.“
Written by a human being
(Credit images: ITU Pictures, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) )
