Ethical AI for sustainable development: User perceptions across the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming technology in society and is increasingly seen as a critical tool for addressing complex global challenges, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. These seventeen goals, grouped into societal, economic, and environmental domains, present both opportunities and risks when intersecting with artificial intelligence. While artificial intelligence has the capacity to accelerate sustainable development, it may also exacerbate inequalities, environmental degradation, or other unintended harms if ethical concerns are not adequately addressed. Despite a growing body of research on ethical frameworks for artificial intelligence, there remains a lack of empirical understanding of how users perceive its potential, its ethical implications, and the principles that should guide its deployment in sustainable development contexts. It is natural to raise the questions: How do Sustainable Development Goals and goal groups affect these user perceptions? To answer these questions, we conducted a comprehensive human-subject study examining variations in user perceptions across 17 Sustainable Development Goals and three overarching goal groups. Our findings reveal substantial variation in perceived potential and ethical priorities depending on the specific goal, while the perceived importance of ethical considerations remains consistent across goal groups. The novelty of this study lies in combining the AI–SDG context with empirical and perception-based evidence, and our results highlight the necessity of incorporating user perspectives into the design and governance of artificial intelligence systems to ensure ethically aligned and socially accepted progress toward sustainable development.