AI, due to its vast capabilities, has the potential to become one of the most influential fields of technology. It has the ability to change the world in ways that humans never could've dreamed of.

The world that we live in, is evolving continuously. The amount of innovation seen in the past century surpasses the relevance of majority of the stuff done since the 1800s. The lifestyle of a normal human being has gone being simply dismal in the 1700s to above mediocre because of the advancements that have been witness by mankind recently. Development in technology has created a domino effect by improving the quality of other industries as well. The median family income of a US household was $29,000 in 1955. In 2019, it increased by more than twice to reach $62,000. All of this seems too good to be true, right? Well, it seems that way because it is.

This unseen growth in our quality of life has resulted in increased life longevity (life expectancy). Our global life expectancy has gone from being just 48 years in 1950 to a whopping 73.2 years in 2020. This might seem as a good thing at first, and it is from few perspectives but the impact that it has had on the global population is not all good. In 2011, the world’s population reached 7 billion people, and while I’m writing this book, the planet is on course to reach 9 billion people despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic since November 2019. A recent study by The Lancet (a peer reviewed journal) predicts that there will be 11.2 billion people inhabiting the earth by the year 2100. This global population growth might have positive impact on the development of society but it certainly has some negative effects on the planet. This massive rise in the world population can have some very detrimental consequences including:

• increase in climate change
• decrease in food security
• overexploitation of resources

Now these are some problems that pose a serious threat to humanity.

We’re humans. We’re the species who have survived life on Earth for the past 300,000 years. It’s habitual for us to come up with something or the other to extend our time here.

To come up with a solution to make our species live longer, we need to formulate a model that is able to eradicate the problems mentioned above that have the ability to impact billions of people. Who do you think would be able to design this model? Certainly not a human. The human mind is not capable of making a model that is going to affect billions of people in a world that is as spontaneous and complex as ours. Our brain was never meant to memorize information; we have computers for that. It was always meant to create new information. Humans might be able to think of a solution but we will certainly need intelligent machines that are able to help us put our solutions into action in the real world. And that is where AI comes into play. We’ll later read in this chapter about how AI is helping humans implement their vision for a better tomorrow in today’s world.

United Nations (UN)

The United Nations is an inter-governmental organization that aims to maintain world peace and security and works for the development of humanity.

The UN organization was founded on 24th October 1945 in California, USA.

With its headquarters situated in New York, United Nations is the world's largest, most well-known, most widely represented, and most powerful intergovernmental organization.

Sustainable Development Goals

Realizing that the problems faced by humanity if not tackled properly will destroy the economy and nature, the UN decided to take some steps.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2015, at the Rio de Janeiro Conference, as a universal call to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Let us see what these goals are and how AI can be used to achieve these goals.

1. No Poverty

   

   Aim: End poverty in all its forms

   Role of AI

   • AI can be used to study satellite images to predict poverty in different regions
   • Natural Disasters like Flood, Earthquakes & Storms without any prior forecasting can result in people becoming poor. People can be kept safe using AI-enabled natural disaster forecasting machines.
   • AI can be used to analyze and predict the future financial status of individuals so that the needful provisions can be made.

2. Zero Hunger

   

   Aim: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture

   Role of AI

   • Drone Imagery and Artificial Intelligence can be used to monitor crops, warn the farmers about the potential risks, and disease detection.
   • AI can be used to predict the amount of seafood that can be found inside certain ocean spots.
   • AI can be used to identify pests (organisms harmful to plants) just by looking at their images.

3. Good Health & Well Being

   

   Aim: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

   Role of AI

   • AI can be used in the field of drug discovery to design customized medicines for patients.
   • AI can be used in the diagnosis of several diseases like Skin Cancer, Down Syndrome, and Brain Tumor.
   • AI can be used to detect mental conditions like depression & anxiety by the speech pattern of an individual.

4. Quality Education

   

   Aim: Ensure inclusive equal quality education (irrespective of gender, race, caste, ethnicity, etc.) and promote lifelong opportunities for all.

   Role of AI

   • AI Chatbots can be used to answer simple queries that are asked by the students.
   • AI is being used by countries like China and Japan for automatic essay correction in schools.
   • AI can be used to analyze students in classrooms and predict whether the students are paying attention or not.
   • AI can be used to predict if cases of bullying in school can evolve into something more serious in the future.