Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Addressing COVID-19 Pandemic’s Challenges

There is a growing awareness that the unfolding Covid-19 pandemic will deeply change people’s lives, while in the humanitarian system the gap between available resources and need is widening. Authors aim to investigate the ways new technologies can be effective in addressing global challenges. A session has been conducted at the United Nations conference HNPW 2020 where humanitarian experts have recognized the potential for Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to support response, decision-making, logistics and health services. In effect, one of the differences between Covid-19 and previous epidemics, consists in the massive deployment of technologies’ applications for monitoring, surveillance, detection, prevention, and mitigation. Areas of concern have been identified in bias, accuracy, protection and use of data, citizens’ privacy and legal gaps. Provided that such issues are addressed in every new project, authors propose to link AI and robotics with the triple nexus concept of the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) aiming to bridge the divide between humanitarian assistance, development agenda and peacebuilding.