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Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to help tackle some of the world’s most challenging social problems. To analyze potential applications for social good, we compiled a library of about 160 AI social-impact use cases. They suggest that existing capabilities could contribute to tackling cases across all 17 of the UN’s sustainable-development goals, potentially helping hundreds of millions of people in both advanced and emerging countries. Real-life examples of AI are already being applied in about one-third of these use cases, albeit in relatively small tests. They range from diagnosing cancer to helping blind people navigate their surroundings, identifying victims of online sexual exploitation, and aiding disaster-relief efforts (such as the flooding that followed Hurricane Harvey in 2017). AI is only part of a much broader tool kit of measures that can be used to tackle societal issues, however. For now, issues such as data accessibility and shortages of AI talent constrain its application for social good.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are among the best-known and most frequently cited societal challenges, and our use cases map to all 17 of the goals, supporting some aspect of each one (Exhibit 3). Our use-case library does not rest on the taxonomy of the SDGs, because their goals, unlike ours, are not directly related to AI usage; about 20 cases in our library do not map to the SDGs at all. The chart should not be read as a comprehensive evaluation of AI’s potential for each SDG; if an SDG has a low number of cases, that reflects our library rather than AI’s applicability to that SDG.

Parallel to the IPCC process, scientific advances mean that models can now link individual weather events to climate change as the cause, said Friederike Otto, acting director of the Environmental Change institute at the University of Oxford in the UK. This is done through attribution science—much in the same way that smoking was linked to cancer decades ago—which is “very much in legal discussions at the moment”, said Otto. Attribution science has been a game changer in the past five years, added Yamin: in the case of an event such as flooding or a heat wave, for example, “you don’t talk about a vague sense of weather any more — you can link it to anthropogenic activities that are causing long-term global change”.

According to a 2016 study by the nonprofit Greater New Orleans, this fledgling water workforce will grow by more than 20 percent over the next 10 years, creating more than 13,600 snazzy new titles like conservation technician, civil engineer and environmental scientist that pay an average of $69,277, well above the national average salary. “Louisiana is one of the first to turn the issue of climate change from an environmental one to an existential and economic one … through the cutting-edge jobs of the future,” claims Greater New Orleans’ executive vice president and chief operating officer Robin Barnes. Which is the city’s way of putting up a NOW HIRING billboard.

Meanwhile, troubled coastal cities around the world are taking note, says Bren Haase, head of planning for the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. With a playbook in place, Louisiana already boasts a 50-year, $50 billion plan to rebuild the state’s coasts, one that’s grounded in decades of data and science; it’s also being translated into several languages, including Vietnamese, Spanish and French, for other countries to reference. Flush with billions of dollars from the settlement in the catastrophic BP oil spill, the Coastal Master Plan could hold key clues for other places facing a similar fate in the future, says Haase, including flood-risk areas like New York, London, Singapore and Kiribati. Moreover, Louisiana’s coastal restoration sector is fueling high-tech projects like artificial oyster reef creation, advanced hydrologic modeling and geosynthetics, which will help shore up the state’s defenses against behemoth hurricanes and oil spills.