AI: A Key Enabler for Sustainable Development Goals: Part 2 [Industry Activities]

Abstract

In Part 1 of this article [2], we discussed artificial intelligence (AI) as an enabler of the SDGs. In this part, our focus is on the role of robotics and automation (R&A) in achieving the SDGs. Since automation has been a core component of technology development for a long time and is the driving factor behind the advances discussed in Part 1, we primarily focus here on robotics and robotic systems. Attending fl agship conferences, such as the IEEE/Robotics Society of Japan International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems and IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, enables us to foresee how R&A will affect our lives in the near future. It is dear that R&A has a wide-ranging impact on many areas of people's lives in developed and developing countries. The anticipated outcomes include improving work conditions; increasing rapidity, precision, repeatability, reliability, fl exibility, productivity, and competitiveness; and tackling serious problems in humanitarian, economic, and environmental dimensions, such as agriculture, health-care services in isolated areas, mining in dangerous environments, and managing natural and human -made disasters. The following sections shed light on the role that R&A will play in achieving the biosphere-, society-, and economy related SDGs.