Artificial Intelligence and the UNDP
Eradicating poverty and reducing inequalities with AI
I have commented before that the topic of AI Safety should be equally as much about ensuring the field of artificial intelligence is working for important goals such as climate change or reducing inequality. In this regard I find the UNDP strategy of interest.
UNDP works to eradicate poverty and reduce inequalities through the sustainable development of nations. This mission is being carried out in more than 170 countries and territories. Quite recently the UNDP launched its digital strategy for 2019–2021. Since this may have consequences for the work that UNDP is doing and artificial intelligence is mentioned as a prominent aspect of their strategy I decided dive into AI and UNDP.
In the UNDP Digital Strategy 2019–2021 Artificial Intelligence is a Significant Opportunity
In their new strategy within §2.1 called Significant Opportunities they mention artificial intelligence first alongside a series of other technologies that are ‘shaking our world at every level’. UNDP is according to their most recent report going through an organisational change in this regard:
“Digital transformation is comprehensive — it’s not simply an IT issue, or one focused solely on operations and administration. Our digital transformation will connect knowledge within UNDP and across our networks of partners to come up with better ideas for those we serve.”
They split between three ‘workstreams’.
- Within the first workstream they aim to establish leadership and enable IT. Therefore it can be argued they are taking a far more active role. They may have hired a Chief Digital UNDP-officer (CDO), at least a job advertisement was out for this role in March 2019. They will be recruiting digital champions too within the community of practice networks.
- In the second workstream they work to enable IT, aligning IT strategy and digital strategy to ‘exploit’ digital information. They aim to aggregate and collect third-party data and establish a client-oriented proactive service. They mention DevOps and Design Thinking as important methods in this regard, to better respond to internal and external customer requests.
- Complementing this the third workstream has a focus on empowering businesses to increase their digital capabilities. They will do this through fostering innovation; digital literacy; digital communication; alliances & ecosystem; and lighthouse initiatives.
A Digital Lighthouse Project (according to UN): is a short-term, well defined and measurable programme that uses digital technology and can serve as a role model — a ‘lighthouse’ for similar programmes across the organization.
They do mention the digital divide briefly in their strategy and that not everything can be solved by technology. There was a UNDP blog post from 2018 with critical thoughts on treating AI as a saviour amongst a series of positive projects of course. There is not much focus on mapping issues in this strategy, rather more focus on the actions to be taken. A strategy after all can be said to be a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim. Although UNDP is a large and recognised organisation they cannot achieve much on their own.
UNDP Joined Partnership on AI in 2018
In New York on the 1st of August — UNDP joined the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (AI), a consortium of companies, academics, and NGOs working to ensure that AI is developed in a safe, ethical, and transparent manner. Founded in 2016 by the tech giants — Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft — It has since been joined by Accenture, Intel, Oxford Internet Institute — University of Oxford, eBay, as well as non profit organisations such as UNICEF and Human Rights Watch and many more.
UNDP Accelerator Labs
I do agree with the partnership that UNDP is creating with these companies, and I would say it is very clear in their digital strategy that this has a clear business focus (some would say entrepreneurial — bottom-up). In addition to this they are expanding with UNDP accelerator labs. They are: “Building the world’s largest and fastest learning network around development challenges.” Yet artificial intelligence is mentioned rapidly on their website: “The impact of artificial intelligence on unemployment,” (retrieved the 13th of August 2019).
“These labs are teams of ethnographers, entrepreneurs, engineers, designers that we are bringing into UNDP to work with our experts on biodiversity and gender equality and poverty reduction.” These labs do however have a clear ‘techie’ feel to them on the surface, however I may be wrong.
Partnering up with Big Tech
I will illustrate quickly the economic power of a few of the large big technology companies in the United States, and it is simply to give a hint to the importance these actors now hold. Additionally in the question pertaining to development these actors will play increasingly important roles as they move into the space of discussing governance related issues, at least this is my mild prediction.
Together, the Big Five tech giants in the US (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet) combined for just over $800 billion of revenue in 2018, which would be among the world’s 20 largest countries in terms of GDP.
UNDP’s Innovation Facility will through this partnership work with communities to responsibly test and scale the use of AI to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. “By harnessing the power of data, we can inform risk, policy and program evaluation, we also can utilize robotics and Internet of Things (IoT) to collect data and reach the previously deemed unreachable — to leave no one behind.”
United Nations Activities on Artificial Intelligence
The 2018 AI for Good Global Summit brought together AI innovators and public and private-sector decision-makers, including more than 30 UN agencies, to generate AI strategies and support projects to accelerate progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
There was a discussion at the “UN Partners Meeting”, and there was a compendium of UN activities on AI, which included the collection of 2-pager reports from 27 UN agencies: listed in Annex — CTBTO, ICAO, ILO, ITU, UNAIDS, UNCTAD, UNDESA, UNDP, UNECE, UNEP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UN Global Pulse, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNICRI, UNIDIR, UNIDO, UNISDR, UNITAR, UNODA, UNOOSA, UN University, WFP, WHO, WIPO, and the World Bank Group.
The compendium was first discussed at a AI for Good UN Partners Meeting in New York, — that took place at the UNFPA Headquarters in New York, on 24 September 2018.
At the meeting, it was agreed that the compendium United Nations Activities on Artificial Intelligence was to be shared with all members of the UN Chief Executive Board.
Building an AI portfolio with UNDP
UNDP’s AI portfolio is growing rapidly. Drones and remote sensing are used to improve data collection and inform decisions: in the Maldives for disaster preparedness, and in Uganda to engage refugee and host communities in jointly developing infrastructures. They partnered with IBM to automate UNDP’s Rapid Integrated Assessment, aligning national development plans and sectoral strategies with the 169 Sustainable Development Goals’ targets; and with the UNEP, UNDP has launched the UN Biodiversity Lab, powered by MapX. The spatial data platform will help countries support conservation efforts and accelerate delivery of the 2030 Agenda.
This is in line with UNDP’s Strategic Plan 2018–2021, where innovation plays a central role in fulfilling the organisation’s mission and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
This is day 72 of #500daysofAI. My current focus for day 50–100 is on AI Safety. If you enjoy this please give me a response as I do want to improve my writing or discover new research, companies and projects. Please get in touch if you want to talk or discuss anything!
