Artificial Intelligence and Data Science for Social Good: The Case for the SDGs

Technologies have always been reshaping our economic, social and cultural environments but more recently we have seen the speed of change and impact of ICT technologies in particular rapidly increasing. These phenomenal changes are fuelled by the proliferation of data and the advances in computational methods. Though Artificial Intelligence as a (sub)discipline has been around for over 60 years, it is only in the last decade or so that we have seen very significant improvements in techniques such as machine learning. The potential of Artificial Intelligence to transform multiple aspects of our lives is huge, but there is an equally huge challenge in ensuring that the benefits of these technologies reach all.