AI for Good

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics innovators—and their high-tech creations—will join humanitarian leaders in Geneva, Switzerland, 6-7 July, for the latest edition of the global summit advancing AI to drive sustainable development. 

As sustainability was the overall theme of ERF 2022, one of the organisations present was ITU with AI for good, an initiative of the United Nations. Intelligent robots have become part of the mission of AI for Good, which is helping the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the UN with technology. At the same time it is important to inhibit the negative implications of the growing use of robotics, says Guillem Martínez Roura, AI and Robotics Programme Coordinator, AI for Good in this interview with Rocking Robots.

A new community platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI), launched by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), aims to step up global collaboration on the use of AI to drive sustainable development.

In a recent research paper IDG aims to help organizations interested in exploring an Automation for Good agenda to understand what is possible and how to get started. For organizations looking to maximize the impact needs to pursue automation with a specific positive intention the authors propose an ‘automation for good manifesto’.

Gaming company Razer aids upcoming startup ClearBot, to redesign its AI robot that cleans up marine plastics. The newly designed and fully automated robot is armed with AI and machine learning capabilities that can detect marine plastics within two meters in rough waters. The robot can collect up to 250 kg of plastics in just one cycle, while running on solar-powered energy.

2B0 announces it is developing recycling robots for homes, offices and retail locations to automate recycling. Users can put their recyclables into the 2B0 IoT (Internet of Things) robot which uses AI to automatically recognize, sort and process the material.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies – has launched a new Focus Group to contend with the increasing prevalence and severity of natural disasters with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).

APRU partners with UN ESCAP and Google to launch the AI for Social Good report. This is the third project exploring AI’s impact on Asia-Pacific societies to offer research-based recommendations to policymakers that focus on how AI can empower work towards the 2030 UN Sustainable Development goals.

How can criminals use AI? And how can the police use AI to track down criminals? The United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) is conducting research into this under the direction of Irakli Beridze.

The ZeroAbuse.AI AI tool is being developed to detect child abuse. Joelle Casteix, who works for the non-profit organization Zero Abuse Project, explains how it works.