Robotics Enabling & Inhibiting the Accomplishment of the #SDGs

 

Bösl, Haidegger et al. published "Automating the Achievement of SDGs: Analyzing the Enabling and Inhibiting Effects of Robotics on the Accomplishment of the SDGs" in the IATT Report for the STI Forum 2021, Emerging science, frontier technologies, and the SDGs Perspectives from the UN system and science and technology communities.

"In 2015, 93 countries agreed to establish the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They are a framework of recommendations and principles to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. After the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), they address global challenges, such as poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, peace and justice.

To facilitate the realization of these standards, member states rely on different approaches and manifestations of innovations. Besides well-known methods from governmental tool-boxes, like political and regulatory improvements or the stakeholder-driven discourse about the establishment of new governance frameworks, fostering and leveraging technological progress becomes more and more crucial to address the increasingly complex problems tomorrow’s world will be facing. Albeit predicting the future is impossible, the analysis of the so-called ‘Megatrends’ [Naisbitt, 1982] provides one commonly accepted method for estimating driving forces that will have an impact on the whole planet earth and humanity over the next 15 to 25 years. Extrapolating these trends, it is possible to make predictions for future needs, developments of future markets and overall requirements for technological innovation. Mobility, globalization, global warming, over-ageing society, urbanization, digital life / connectivity, individualization and orientation towards a healthy lifestyle are an often-cited subset of megatrends that will heavily influence the evolution of disruptive technologies, such as robotics and automation [Boesl, 2019].

Currently, the world is experiencing the peak of the digitalization wave. But the next, maybe even bigger disruption is already afoot: Robotics and Automation. Riding on the wings of Artificial Intelligence, they will permeate all areas of our living realm. Over the next 50 years, they will have at least as much impact on society and our world as the internet and mainstream IT have unfurled over the last five decades. Subsequently, our grandchildren will grow up as the first “Generation ‘R’” of “Robotic Natives” – in daily contact with these technologies – and will often rely on the development of digital technologies [Boesl, 2016]. Today, though, they still remain limited in their potential impact (e.g., because of the important associated costs, or the lack of available devices in critical situations, for instance during the COVID-19 crisis). It is very possible that robotics could play a key role in the implementation of international strategies (e.g., the Great Reset initiative of the World Economic Forum) to help shape the recovery and rebuild society and the economy in a more sustainable fashion.

The impact and entanglement of AI to help achieve the SDGs has been analyzed in some recent publications [Vinuesa, 2020; Chui, 2019]. This group of authors is translating a similar methodology to the domain of robotics and automation."