AI for Advancing UN Sustainable Development Goals: Opportunities and Risks

The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent one of the most ambitious frameworks for global progress ever conceived, targeting an end to poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation by 2030. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force with the potential to dramatically accelerate — or, if mismanaged, undermine — progress toward these goals. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of how AI technologies are being applied across all 17 SDGs, examines the risks and ethical dimensions of AI-driven development, reviews the current global governance landscape, and proposes a multi-stakeholder framework for harnessing AI responsibly in service of humanity’s most pressing challenges. Our analysis reveals that AI’s contributions are most mature in health (SDG 3), climate action (SDG 13), and education (SDG 4), while applications in gender equality (SDG 5), reduced inequalities (SDG 10), and partnerships (SDG 17) remain nascent. Key risks — including algorithmic bias, digital exclusion, environmental costs of computation, and governance gaps — threaten to concentrate AI’s benefits among already-privileged populations. We argue that achieving the SDGs through AI requires a paradigm shift from techno-solutionism to justice-centered design, grounded in international cooperation, open-source infrastructure, and inclusive participation of Global South communities in AI development.