Deadline: 01 April 2024

The Future of Life Institute is calling for research proposals that assess in detail how artificial intelligence (AI) has so far impacted on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relating to poverty, health, energy and climate change, and how it can be expected to impact on them in the near future.THERE ARE FEW HOURS LEFT!

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This current call for proposals is part of FLI's Futures programme, which aims to guide humanity towards the beneficial outcomes made possible by transformative technologies. The programme seeks to engage a diverse group of stakeholders from different professions, communities and regions to shape their shared future together.

This research can examine cases where AI is intended to directly address the respective SDGs or where AI has affected the realisation of these goals through its spillover effects. Each paper should select one SDG or target, analyse the impact of AI on its achievement to date and explore the ways in which AI may accelerate, inhibit or prove irrelevant to the achievement of that goal by 2030. They recognise that AI is a broad term, encompassing systems that are both constrained and general, with varying degrees of capability. Therefore, for the purposes of this RFP, they encourage the use of this taxonomy as a guide to explore and categorise current and future uses of AI.

Levels

• Level 0: No AI
• Level 1: Emerging
  • equal to or slightly better than an unqualified human being
• Level 2: Competent
  • at least 50th percentile of qualified adults
• Level 3: Specialist
  • at least 90th percentile of qualified adults
• Level 4: Virtuoso
  • at least 99th percentile of qualified adults
• Level 5: Superhuman
  • surpasses humans' 100%

The SDGs

• Objectives Sustainable Development (SDGs) remain the most widely supported repository of high-priority problems for the world to solve, especially with regard to poverty, health, energy and climate-related challenges. The centrepiece of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015, the 17 SDGs are an ambitious hope for a better world, but also, for their purposes, a set of concrete measurable targets against which to assess the extent of progress in the four defined areas. For clarity, the goals directly relevant to these focuses are 1 ( Poverty ), 3 (Health), 7 (Energy) and 13 (Climate).
• The objectives are interlinked. Solving one can involve or help solve another. According to the UN, the goals "recognise that ending poverty and other deprivation must go hand in hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality and stimulate growth". economic - while fighting climate change and working to preserve oceans and forests." In fact, a 2020 paper by Vinuessa et al. analysed the effect that AI could have on all the goals. It concluded that while AI could have both positive and negative impacts on the SDGs, the net effect of AI would be positive.

Filling a gap

• As noted in the general analysis by Vinuesa et al, "self-interest can be expected to influence the AI research community and industry to publish positive results". As a result, they have so far lacked an objective and independent analysis of the impact of AI. Given that AI is rapidly being integrated into all aspects of society, this gap in the research community now needs to be filled.

Examples of proposal titles

• These samples serve to make researchers think about various approaches. The selection of the SDGs does not imply a preference for those specific objectives in the proposed research.
• SDG 1
  • How has AI affected the implementation of social support systems?
  • What data do you have to suggest how AI will impact the goal of halving poverty by 2030?
  • What is the risk that general-purpose AI will significantly increase poverty by then?
• SDG 3
  • How has AI affected the goal of reducing maternal mortality?

Project evaluation and eligibility criteria

• Proposals will be evaluated according to the background of the researcher, the quality of the evaluation outline, the likelihood of the research producing valuable results and the rigour of the proposed projection method.
• Grant applications will be subject to a competitive external and confidential peer review process. They are intended to support several proposals. Accepted proposals will receive a one-time grant of US$ 15,000, to be used at the discretion of the researcher. Grants will be awarded to non-profit organisations, with institutional overheads or indirect costs not exceeding 15%.

For more information, visit FLI .