Human development is stagnating, slowing down global progress and widening equality gaps, but artificial intelligence (AI) could save the day, according to a new report released on Tuesday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The 2025 Human Development Report found that despite humanity having come out the other side of global shockwaves such as the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an unexpectedly weak rise in progress, the smallest increase since 1990.
The report, titled ‘A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of artificial intelligence,’ analysed development progress across a range of indicators known as the Human Development Index (HDI), which encompasses achievements in health and education, along with levels of income.
“For decades, we have been on track to reach a very high human development world by 2030, but this deceleration signals a very real threat to global progress,” Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator, said in a statement.
“If 2024’s sluggish progress becomes ‘the new normal,’ that 2030 milestone could slip by decades – making our world less secure, more divided, and more vulnerable to economic and ecological shocks”.
Six in 10 are confident about AI’s impact
Steiner added that new ways to drive development should be explored, which include AI.
Half of the global respondents said in the survey that they thought their jobs could be automated and 60 per cent of them said they expected AI to impact their employment positively, creating opportunities in jobs that may not even exist today, and 64 per cent said they were confident AI would make them more productive at work.
Only 13 per cent of survey respondents fear AI could lead to job losses.
Overall, the survey showed the general population's attitude to AI was upbeat and found that it could narrow the equality gap.
In countries that ranked low and medium on the HDI, 70 per cent expect AI to increase their productivity, and two-thirds anticipate using AI in education, health, or work within the next year.
However, the report advocates for a human-centred approach to AI despite headlines warning of artificial general intelligence (AGI), where humans are no longer needed and machines can operate autonomously.
It argues that machines taking over cannot happen as algorithms cannot frame problems. The problems they solve must be defined for them by humans who designed the hardware and specified their functions and the data they are trained on.
Closing inequality gaps
The report argues that AI can be employed as intelligence augmentation, not to replace us but to increase our own human thinking capabilities.
The report says that AI democratisation is underway, but that closing the electricity and internet gaps is crucial so that no one is excluded.
Besides access, policymakers will be critical as well as how effectively AI complements and augments what people do.
"The choices we make in the coming years will define the legacy of this technological transition for human development," said Pedro Conceição, Director of UNDP’s Human Development Report Office.
"With the right policies and focus on people, AI can be a crucial bridge to new knowledge, skills, and ideas that can empower everyone from farmers to small business owners”.
The UNDP survey gathered responses from over 21,000 individuals across 21 countries and in 36 languages, representing 63 per cent of the world’s population.