Abstract

On October 25, 2015, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) set forth an agenda which included 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets to transform the world by 2030. The agenda set forth a plan of action that recognized a myriad of challenges which, if surmounted, could empower people, benefit the planet, and create an impetus for worldwide prosperity.Due to the coronavirus pandemic and its economic and social fallout, the world today is not on track to attain the SDGs by the year 2030. However, the disruptive impact of the pandemic on many areas of life among other things was in a sense a “game changer” with respect to our (human) approaches to artificial intelligence (AI) and to AI itself. The global pandemic caused a major shift with regard to AI. It revealed that in this day and time AI is a necessity for the flourishing of humanity worldwide. It is no longer a luxury. Developed and developing countries alike were caught unaware by the COVID disruption. All experienced gaps in healthcare and education delivery and increased poverty in one form or another. In this situation, AI turned out to be not merely useful, it quickly proved itself to be indispensable. In a world that is still struggling to recover from the pandemic, AI has and will continue to play a major role in transforming the work of poverty alleviation, hence affecting the advancement of the poverty-related SDGs.The chapter will present examples of AI implementation in areas of the world where poverty is significant: China, India, and two countries in Africa. It will look at rural poverty specifically, although urban poverty is growing at expediential rates, and examine how AI has affected the work of alleviating poverty through improving healthcare delivery and strengthening access to education. The analysis will delve into the advancement of specific SDGs with the use of AI, such as SDG #1 no poverty, SDG #3 good health and well-being, SDG #4 quality education, and SDG #10 reduced inequalities. Finally, this chapter will draw policy implications for the work of fighting extreme poverty in a post-COVID and increasingly AI-enabled world.