Meeting sustainable development goals via robotics and autonomous systems

Abstract

Robotics and autonomous systems are reshaping the world, changing healthcare, food production and biodiversity management. While they will play a fundamental role in delivering the UN Sustainable Development Goals, associated opportunities and threats are yet to be considered systematically. We report on a horizon scan evaluating robotics and autonomous systems impact on all Sustainable Development Goals, involving 102 experts from around the world. Robotics and autonomous systems are likely to transform how the Sustainable Development Goals are achieved, through replacing and supporting human activities, fostering innovation, enhancing remote access and improving monitoring. Emerging threats relate to reinforcing inequalities, exacerbating environmental change, diverting resources from tried-and-tested solutions and reducing freedom and privacy through inadequate governance. Although predicting future impacts of robotics and autonomous systems on the Sustainable Development Goals is difficult, thoroughly examining technological developments early is essential to prevent unintended detrimental consequences. Additionally, robotics and autonomous systems should be considered explicitly when developing future iterations of the Sustainable Development Goals to avoid reversing progress or exacerbating inequalities.

Humans, robots and artificial intelligences reconfiguring urban life in a crisis

“…Urban robots are expected to have complex beneficial and detrimental impacts on society, with potential to support and augment human capabilities but also to replace them altogether. Likewise, robots have potential to foster innovation, enhance access and provide data for improved decision-making but there is also a risk that they will reproduce and automate inequality or result in more fragmented and opaque urban governance (Guenat et al, 2022). Further research is needed to critically assess the long-term impacts of the RAS in MK.…”

“…Robots have the potential to augment human capabilities and to automate jobs that humans find repetitive, tedious or even dangerous but there is also a risk that they will reinforce or automate inequalities (for example, due to unequal access to robotic services, or due to displacement of labor). Robots in cities can provide measures to address pressing global risks (for example, as discussed in the case study, by supporting the response to a pandemic) but they can also give rise to new risks as cities becomes subject to code errors or cyber-security attacks by malicious actors (Kitchin and Dodge, 2019;Guenat et al, 2022).…”

Robots in tourism and Sustainable Development Goals: Tourism Agenda 2030 perspective article

“…Although for some SDGs, robots have a more positive effect, for others, the negative consequences are more evident (Table 1). Overall, it seems that robots might have a positive effect on the achievement of the SDGs (Guenat et al , 2022) but considering the very small number of robots used by TH companies worldwide (there are no official statistical data, but we expect that TH companies use altogether probably a few thousand robots for cleaning, room service delivery, cooking, robotic waiters, hosts and concierges, etc.) the actual magnitude of the impact is small although likely positive.…”

“…Robots can be critical drivers in making it possible for TH companies to play a key role in the achievement of the SDGs. Even if the relationships between SDGs and robotics are under discussion (Guenat et al , 2022), to the authors’ knowledge, there are no studies focused specifically on the tourism sector. Previous studies on robots in tourism have discussed a wide scope of topics such as customer attitudes and the adoption of robots (Abou-Shouk et al , 2021; Chen et al , 2022; Goel et al , 2022; Yu, 2020; Zhong et al , 2022), employee perceptions (Parvez et al , 2022), the economic aspects of robots (Ivanov and Webster, 2020), adoption of robots by TH companies (Jabeen et al , 2022; Pizam et al , 2022; Vatan and Dogan, 2021), the service delivery system design (Seyitoğlu and Ivanov, 2020) and a number of other issues, but the role of robots in tourism’s contribution to the achievement of the SDGs has been neglected – a gap to be partially filled in by this perspective article.…”

“…Adopted in September 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development formulates 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that encompass a wide range of environmental and social issues as peace, poverty, justice, prosperity and environmental protection (Griggs et al , 2013; Guenat et al , 2022), operationalised into 169 targets. The introduction and discussion of SDGs had an impact on all economic areas, influencing the debate in the tourism sector too (Dwyer, 2022; Nunkoo et al , 2021).…”