Realigning AI technology towards the Sustainable Development Goals

The rapid growth of AI infrastructure is straining global resources. Data centers consumed 1.5% of worldwide electricity in 2024, a demand projected to surge by over double by 2030. This surge in energy use, dependent on fossil fuels, exacerbates greenhouse gas emissions, making climate action (SDG 13) more challenging. Without significant change, e-waste from generative AI could proliferate by nearly three times from 2020 levels, reaching five million tonnes by 2030.

However, only a quarter of e-waste is collected and recycled, resulting in hazardous substances released during informal practices like burning, landfilling, and dumping. These practices contaminate soil, water, and air, undermining responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) and life on land (SDG 15) goals. Additionally, AI's ability to generate highly realistic but misleading content, images, and videos at low cost blurs the line between truth and fabrication, threatening public trust essential to health and well-being (SDG 3) and quality education (SDG 4).

The opacity and limited explainability of AI algorithms compound this issue, as biased outputs or false claims made by black-box AI systems are nearly impossible to trace, undermining peace, justice, and strong institutions (SDG 16).