Page 38 - Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

a. Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help reduce air pollution, reduce hydrological risk,
and environmentally consciously manage e-waste

An International Telecommunication Union (ITU) flagship publication series, the ITU News Magazine,
devoted its January 2018 edition to artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can solve complex problems
autonomously. In this edition, titled ‘Artificial intelligence for global good’, ITU identified several
applications of AI that address climate change, including those related to topics such as biodiversity
and conservation, ocean health, water security, clean air and disaster risk. Many of these applications
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are relevant and applicable at the city or urban agglomeration/regional level.

ITU also hosts the annual AI for Good Global Summit , which is ‘the leading United Nations Platform
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for dialogue on beneficial AI,’ according to Dr Chaesub Lee, Director of the ITU Telecommunication
Standardization Bureau (ITU-T). Box 4 provides highlights of the summit series.

Box 4: The AI for Good Global Summit Series 100

The AI for Good Global Summit

The AI for Good Global Summit, organized in partnership with the XPRIZE Foundation, the
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and more than 26 UN agencies, was the first
event to initiate global dialogue on AI’s potential to act as a force for good. The 2017 summit
sparked the first-ever inclusive global dialogue on beneficial AI, which was followed by 2018’s
action-oriented summit that focused on impactful artificial intelligence solutions able to yield
long-term benefits by identifying applications of AI capable of improving the quality and
sustainability of life on Earth. The summit also formulated supporting strategies to ensure
trusted, safe and inclusive development of AI technologies and equitable access to their
benefits. The 2019 summit took place from 28–31 May, 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland with
the following goals as seen in Figure 7.

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