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Philanthropy, Civil Society and AI

In this episode of the Philanthropisms podcast we take a deep dive into the opportunities and challenges that artificial intelligence might bring for philanthropy and civil society.

Including:

  • Why is everyone talking about AI all of a sudden?
  • What do we actually mean by “AI”?
  • How much of the talk about “AI For Good” is substantive, and how much is hype?
  • What are some of the best examples of nonprofits/funders currently making use of AI?
  • What impact will the emergence of new AI capabilites around process automation, image recognition, natural language processing, content generation etc have on the way that nonprofits work?
  • What are the risks of “naive automation”? Why should make sure that there are still “humans in the loop”?
  • How do we guard against the risk of systems like ChatGPT providing false or inaccurate information?
  • What lessons can we learn from recent examples of nonprofits using ChatGPT and generative AI badly?
  • How will AI affect the wider financial and regulatory environment for CSOs?
  • What impact will AI, in the form of recommender algorithms, have on the ways in which we make choices about where and how to give?
  • Could we see the emergence of fully automated “philgorithms”?
  • How can nonprofits combat the risks of algorithmic bias, both in terms of how it affects them and the people/communities they serve?
  • What role can nonprofits play in addressing AI-driven misinformation & disinformation?
  • What role does civil society have to play in exploring new visions for a “post-work” future?
  • Should we take warnings of existential risks from AI seriously? If so, what does this mean for philanthropy?
  • What role should funders/CSOs play in highlighting the potential harms of AI? What barriers prevent them from doing this at present?

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