AI for development: facts and figures

露丝·道格拉斯（Ruth Douglas）探索了AI在国际发展中的应用以及与这项快速发展的技术相关的风险。

人工智能（AI）已经应用于从农业，卫生和教育到城市规划的国际发展的每个部门。beplay下载官网西西软件而且，人们对利用这项技术的社会利益有兴趣。

Farmers are able to mitigate crop failure thanks to AI-based smartphone apps, health authorities can predict the next disease outbreak, and the world’sschools are being mapped确定资源中的差距。

政府和公司正试图利用AI技术来预测和监测地震，洪水和干旱等自然灾害，并有效地针对紧急响应。

然而，在未来十年中，AI的经济收益预计在发展中国家相对较低。根据最近的预测，由于AI的发展和采用，全球GDP在2030年将高达14％，这使世界经济增长了15.7万亿美元。

The figure comes from areport on the value of AI通过会计公司PriceWaterHouseCoopers（PWC），发现中国和北美可能会看到最大的经济增长，占全球总数的70％。但是，尽管它预测所有经济体都将受益，但由于AI技术的采用率较低，发展中国家将经历“更适度的增长”。

National strategies

While many countries in the Global North have adopted national strategies for AI in recent years, Global South countries have been slower off the mark. India, Kenya and Mexico are the only ones which have put such frameworks in place, according to an overview of national AI strategies published in政治+AI。

肯尼亚政府创建了一个taskforce2018年，专注于AI和分布式分类帐技术（例如区块链），并为未来五年制定了促进这些技术的路线图。

印度的AI策略focuses on social growth and inclusion, and was launched with the hashtag #AIforall in June 2018. It aims to equip Indians with skills to work in the sector, as well as invest in AI research, and export Indian-made AI solutions to other developing countries.

但是，尽管许多国家缺乏全国动力，但AI的应用已经充实，这些应用程序有可能改善全球南方的生活和生计。

农业的人工智能beplay下载官网西西软件

beplay下载官网西西软件农业是一个正在看到基于AI的应用的爆炸式爆炸的部门，旨在帮助农民解决农作物疾病，害虫和与气候有关的问题。

A new global industryreport on AI in agriculturesays the market size will grow from US$522.6 million in 2017 to US$1,765.98 million by 2023. It cites population growth and subsequent rising demand for agricultural production as a major factor in that growth.

With the global population projected to grow from 7.6 billion in 2018 to more than 9.6 billion in 2050, according to UN figures, there will be a significant increase in the demand for food. Meanwhile, natural resources such as water and fertile agricultural land are coming under increasing pressure from climate change and overuse, fuelling the need for new technologies to improve climate resilience.

Digital innovations and technologies could be part of the solution, according to theFood and Agriculture Organization (FAO).AI technologies, such as machine learning and predictive analytics, allow farmers to receive insights into weather conditions and soil moisture, crop diseases and pests, to inform their decision making. And a number of NGOs, start-up companies and multilateral agencies are committed to making them accessible to smallholder farmers in developing countries.

Connectivity challenge

但是对于许多居住在农村地区的农民中，仍然存在一个主要的障碍 - 连通性。卫生工作者和其他发展方面的人也是如此。

一方面，手机已经无处不在：2016年世界银行报告标题为数字股息发现，在发展中国家，有十分之一的人拥有手机，数量稳步上升。Even among the bottom fifth of the population, nearly 70 per cent own one, it said.

但是，尽管如此，“世界上大多数人民的生活在很大程度上都不受数字革命的影响”。根据联合国的数据Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development。

This is one of the major challenges faced by AI in the Global South. Connectivity and bandwidth are still limited or unaffordable in many areas, and may be inadequate for AI-based applications.

根据低收入国家和中等收入国家，1GB的数据成本超过一个月内收入的5％以上，远高于1GB的1GB数据的“负担得起的门槛”，价格为2％或更少。这负担得起的互联网联盟。联合国的可持续发展目标于2015年9月实施，要求到2020年通用，负担得起的互联网访问。

Digital literacy and the skills required to develop and maintain sophisticated AI systems are also often lacking in these countries. And AI applications rely on large volumes of data, which may not always be available.

What are the risks?

除此之外，人们担心AI软件的潜在不准确性。AI使用在特定上下文中收集的数据。如果在其他地方使用它可能无关紧要，或者在以后的时间点应用，可能会过时。

“AI tools should always be locally tailored so that relevant context and sensitivities inform how software developers approach tool design and evaluation,” a USAID report titledMaking AI Work for International Developmentrecommends. It calls for “deep local partnerships”, involving technology users, owners and regulators at the design stage, and consulting them early on in the process.

该报告还指出了全球和发展环境中最常被引用的AI风险之一：现有的社会偏见和偏见可以建立在AI计划中的危险。AI模型依靠数据，这些数据可能已经反映了此类偏见。或实际上该程序可能反映其设计师的固有偏见。无论哪种方式，结果都可能是已经脆弱或被排除在人口的部分的进一步边缘化。

Finally, there is the fear that AI will take people’s jobs. But is this founded? Certainly, AI has the potential to make many jobs redundant as processes become automated and services streamlined. But there is a widely held view that these losses will be compensated for by the creation of new roles in the field.

在调查中of technology business leaders in 108 countries, launched by KPMG and Harvey Nash, respondents typically said they believed around 10 per cent of their company’s workforce will be replaced within five years by AI/automation. However, more than two-thirds said they believed that new jobs will emerge to compensate for this. The dystopian notion of robots taking over from humans remains, for now, a distant threat.