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AI for Good | |
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Begins | 8 July 2025 |
Ends | 11 July 2025 |
Venue | Palexpo |
Location(s) | Geneva |
Country | Switzerland |
Years active | 7 |
Most recent | 2024 |
Attendance | 20,000 (2022) |
Organised by | ITU-T |
Sponsors | Swiss Confederation, Deloitte, Technology Innovation Institute, DLA Piper, King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, Microsoft, China Mobile, Alibaba Group, Amazon Web Services, China Telecom, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications,Ministry of Science and ICT, ZTE, China Unicom, Salesforce, PwC, KUKA, CEIMIA, Huawei, FSAB Consulting, Cisco, Samsung, Gen Digital, Ernst & Young |
Website | aiforgood.itu.int |
AI for Good was established in 2017 by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations (UN) agency for digital technologies. The platform is co-convened with the Government of Switzerland and in partnership UN agencies. [1] Its founding mission is to leverage the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to drive progress toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
AI for Good arose from collaboration between ITU and IBM Watson AI XPRIZE. The first AI for Good Global Summit 2017 was held in Geneva, Switzerland [2] and is since held annually. [3]
With the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and global shutdowns, AI for Good moved online in March 2020. The platform has 37,000 contributors from more than 180 countries.[ citation needed ] Since 2023 AI for Good hosts a physical Global Summit in Geneva again annually. [4]
AI for Good has supported Global Initiatives on AI and Data Commons, [5] AI for Health [6] (in partnership with WHO), on Resilience to Natural Hazards through AI Solutions [7] (former ITU/WMO/UNEP Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Natural Disaster Management (FG-AI4NDM) [8] ), AI and Multimedia authenticity standards collaboration [9] (under the World Standards Cooperation [10] ), AI for Road Safety [11] (in partnership with UNECE) and pre-standardization focus groups [12] on Artificial Intelligence Native for Telecommunication Networks (FG-AINN), [13] AI and Internet of Things (IoT) for Digital Agriculture [14] (in partnership with FAO), concluded focus groups on AI and Environmental Efficiency, [15] Machine Learning and 5G. [16]
AI for Good is guided by Resolution 214 [17] of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, and amplified by Resolution A/78/L.49 of the UN General Assembly. [18] The adoption of Resolution COM4/AI at WTSA-24 [19] describes ITU's mandate and AI for Good's role in AI development.[ non-primary source needed ]
The 2024 AI for Good Global Summit was held in Geneva on May 30 – 31. The event was attended by leaders from governments, industries, and academia, alongside 10,000 online participants. Highlights included the launch of a unified framework for AI standards by ITU, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), addressing issues like AI watermarking and deepfake detection, and over 400 UN-led AI projects. The Summit also introduced the AI for Good Impact Initiative, aiming to scale AI solutions globally and foster regional engagement through competitions, accelerators, and policy guidance. Demonstrations showcased innovations, including generative AI and mind-controlled robotic prosthetics.
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The 2023 AI for Good Global Summit took place on 6 – 7 July in Geneva. The event brought together participants, including government officials, policymakers, industry leaders, academics, scientists, technology innovators, civil society members, and representatives from the UN community. The summit received some publicity due to the large gathering of humanoid robots that occurred, including Ai-Da, Nadine Social Robot, Geminoid, and Sophia. [20]
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In 2020 the Global Summit was an online-only event. In 2022, the summit moved to the "Neural Network" community platform. [21] Speakers included: [22]
The third AI for Good Global Summit took place from 28 May to 31 May, and gave rise to the ITU Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Autonomous and Assisted Driving with several Day 0 workshops and VIP events having taken place on May 27. [23] Some of the speakers included:
The second AI for Good Global Summit took place from 15 to 17 May 2018 at the ITU headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and generated 35 AI project proposals. [24] [25] [26] Speakers included: [27]
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The first AI for Good Global summit took place from 7 to 9 June 2017. Speakers at the event included: [28] [29]
One of the outcomes of the 2017 Global Summit was the creation of an ITU-T Focus Group on Machine Learning for 5G.[ citation needed ]
The ITU-T Focus Group on Machine Learning for 5G Networks (FG-ML5G) was created following discussions at the 2017 AI for Good Global Summit. The FG-ML5G is produced several technology standards in this domain, including Y.3172, Y.3173, Y.3176, which were adopted by ITU-T Study Group 13. The FG-ML5G created the impetus for a new ITU-T Focus Group on Autonomous Networks, which is responsible for i.a. Y.3181.[ citation needed ]
The 2018 Global Summit led to the creation of the ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health with the World Health Organization, which created the AI for Health Framework. [30]
Together with ITU-T Study Group 16 and 17, AI for Good has been developing technology specifications under Trustworthy AI. Including items on homomorphic encryption, secure multi-party computation, and federated learning.
The ITU relaunched its Journal ICT Discoveries during the 2018 Global Summit, with the first edition being a special on Artificial Intelligence. [31]
Payal Arora criticized AI for Good for its paternalism towards the Global South. [32]
Artificial intelligence (AI), in its broadest sense, is intelligence exhibited by machines, particularly computer systems. It is a field of research in computer science that develops and studies methods and software that enable machines to perceive their environment and use learning and intelligence to take actions that maximize their chances of achieving defined goals. Such machines may be called AIs.
The International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three Sectors (branches) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating standards for telecommunications and Information Communication Technology, such as X.509 for cybersecurity, Y.3172 and Y.3173 for machine learning, and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC for video compression, between its Member States, Private Sector Members, and Academia Members.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, significantly predating the UN and making it the oldest UN agency. Doreen Bogdan-Martin is the Secretary-General of ITU, the first woman to serve as its head.
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a two-phase United Nations-sponsored summit on information, communication and, in broad terms, the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. WSIS Forums have taken place periodically since then. One of the Summit's chief aims is to bridge the global digital divide separating rich countries from poor countries by increasing internet accessibility in the developing world. The conferences established 17 May as World Information Society Day.
Thomas Wiegand is a German electrical engineer who substantially contributed to the creation of the H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC video coding standards. He has been elected to the German National Academy of Engineering (Acatech) and the National Academy of Science (Leopoldina).
For H.264/AVC, Wiegand was one of the chairmen of the Joint Video Team (JVT) standardization committee that created the standard and was the chief editor of the standard itself. He was also a very active technical contributor to the H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC video coding standards. Wiegand also holds a chairmanship position in the ITU-T VCEG of ITU-T Study Group 16 and previously in ISO/IEC MPEG standardization organizations. In July 2006, video coding work of the ITU-T was jointly led by Gary J. Sullivan and Wiegand for the preceding six years. It was voted as the most influential area of the standardization work of the CCITT and ITU-T in their 50-year history. Since 2018, Wiegand has served as chair of the ITU/WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health (FG-AI4H). Since 2014, Thomson Reuters named Wiegand in their list of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” as one of the most cited researchers in his field.
The ethics of artificial intelligence covers a broad range of topics within the field that are considered to have particular ethical stakes. This includes algorithmic biases, fairness, automated decision-making, accountability, privacy, and regulation. It also covers various emerging or potential future challenges such as machine ethics, lethal autonomous weapon systems, arms race dynamics, AI safety and alignment, technological unemployment, AI-enabled misinformation, how to treat certain AI systems if they have a moral status, artificial superintelligence and existential risks.
Stephen K. Ibaraki has been a teacher, an industry analyst, writer and consultant in the IT industry, and the former president of the Canadian Information Processing Society.
Shinjini Kundu is an Indian American physician and computer scientist at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Her research focuses on designing artificial intelligence systems to detect diseases that may be imperceptible to humans. She was named one of Forbes 30 under 30, MIT Technology Review's 35 innovators under 35, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and a winner of the Carnegie Science Award.
Aimee van Wynsberghe is the Alexander von Humboldt professor for "Applied Ethics of Artificial Intelligence" at the University of Bonn, Germany. She is director of the Institute for Science and Ethics (IWE) and founder of the Bonn Sustainable AI Lab. She is a member of the German Academy for Sciences and Literature, Mainz, Advisory Board member for the DAAD Konrad Zuse Schools of Excellence in AI and has served as a member of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI. Prof. van Wynsberghe is author of the book Healthcare Robots: Ethics, Design and Implementation and founding editor for the international peer-reviewed journal AI & Ethics. She regularly appears in the media to promote awareness of the pressing ethical issues surrounding the design and use of robotics and AI in society. Aimee van Wynsberghe hosts every two years the Sustainable AI Conference in Bonn, Germany.
Chaesub Lee PhD is a telecommunication executive who served as the Director of ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, the permanent secretariat of the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) from 2015 until 2022.
Y.3172 is an ITU-T Recommendation specifying an architecture for machine learning in future networks including 5G (IMT-2020). The architecture describes a machine learning pipeline in the context of telecommunication networks that involves the training of machine learning models, and also the deployment using methods such as containers and orchestration.
Regulation of artificial intelligence is the development of public sector policies and laws for promoting and regulating artificial intelligence (AI). It is part of the broader regulation of algorithms. The regulatory and policy landscape for AI is an emerging issue in jurisdictions worldwide, including for international organizations without direct enforcement power like the IEEE or the OECD.
The ITU-T Study Group 16 (SG16) is a statutory group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with multimedia coding, systems and applications, such as video coding standards. It is responsible for standardization of the "H.26x" line of video coding standards, the "T.8xx" line of image coding standards, and related technologies, as well as various collaborations with the World Health Organization, including on safe listening (H.870) accessibility of e-health (F.780.2), it is also the parent body of VCEG and various Focus Groups, such as the ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health and its AI for Health Framework.
The ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health is an inter-agency collaboration between the World Health Organization and the ITU, which created a benchmarking framework to assess the accuracy of AI in health.
Anja Kaspersen is a director for Global Markets Development, New Frontiers and Emerging Spaces at IEEE, the world's largest technical professional organisation. Kaspersen is also a senior fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs where she co-directs the Artificial Intelligence Equality Initiative with Wendell Wallach. With scholars and thinkers in the field of technology governance, supported by Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and IEEE, Kaspersen and Wallach provided a Proposal for International governance of AI.
Wendell Wallach is a bioethicist and author focused on the ethics and governance of emerging technologies, in particular artificial intelligence and neuroscience. He is a scholar at Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, a senior advisor to The Hastings Center, and a Carnegie/Uehiro Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, where he co-directs the "Artificial Intelligence Equality Initiative" with Anja Kaspersen. Wallach is also a fellow at the Center for Law and Innovation at the Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law at Arizona State University. He has written two books on the ethics of emerging technologies.: "Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong" (2010) and "A Dangerous Master: How to Keep Technology from Slipping Beyond Our Control" (2015). Wallach discusses his professional, personal and spiritual journey, as well as some of the biggest conundrums facing humanity at the wake of the bio/digital revolution, in this podcast published by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (CCEIA).
William Wasswa is a Ugandan lecturer, engineer and researcher. He serves as a senior lecturer in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering at Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda.
Y.3181 is an ITU-T Recommendation specifying an Architectural framework for Machine Learning Sandbox in future networks. The standard describes the requirements and architecture for a machine learning sandbox a in future networks including IMT-2020.
The ITU-T Study Group 17 (SG17) is a statutory group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with security. The group is concerned with a broad range of security-related standardization issues such as cybersecurity, security management, security architectures and frameworks, countering spam, identity management, biometrics, protection of personally identifiable information, and the security of applications and services for the Internet of Things (IoT). It is responsible for standardization of i.a. ASN.1 and X.509, it is also the parent body of the Focus Group on Quantum Information Technology (FG-QIT). The group is currently chaired by Heung Youl Youm of South Korea.
Trustworthy AI refers to artificial intelligence systems designed and deployed to be transparent, robust and respectful of data privacy.