Giving Compass' Take:

• Alan Boyle reports that Google has announced a $25 million challenge to create AI for social good in response to growing concerns about the potential of AI to do harm. 

• How can funders maximize the positive social impact of emerging technologies and mitigate the damage? 

• Learn about the problems associated with philanthropic contests. 

Google unveiled a $25 million initiative called the Google AI Impact Challenge, aimed at soliciting and supporting projects that make use of artificial intelligence to solve some of the world’s greatest social, humanitarian and environmental problems.

The global challenge is open to nonprofit organizations and public charities — and to for-profit businesses as well, as long as their projects have a charitable purpose.

Google’s call to humanitarian action is part of its broader “AI for Social Good” campaign, and comes just weeks after Google Cloud decided not to bid on the Pentagon’s $10 billion JEDI cloud computing project due to ethical concerns.

The focus on humanitarian applications for AI comes amid concerns about the technology’s potential downside for issues ranging from data privacy and social equity to employment.

Read the full article about AI for social good by Alan Boyle at GeekWire.