Giving Compass' Take:

• Deborah Charatan explains how AI tools that can access, analyze, and report on broad sets of data with accuracy can be useful to philanthropy. 

• Can you use AI to improve your philanthropy? What are the risks of using AI? How can they be avoided? 

• Learn about combating AI bias. 

It’s no secret that philanthropy is an imperfect way to fund important causes. When we give with our hearts instead of our heads, we tend to overfund popular organizations and underfund needier ones, creating a discrepancy in charitable giving.

With wealth concentrated in the hands of an increasingly narrow minority, causes valued by top earners (and their foundations) also naturally receive the most charitable funds. Because of this, wealthy donors have a disproportionate responsibility to look beyond personal bias and allocate their funds wisely.

Is there a better way? With artificial intelligence on the rise, there could be.

To give is simple, but to give effectively based on evidence and reason requires rigorous research, willpower, and money management. These are quantitative questions, yet givers have been historically motivated by feelings of goodwill and empathy (not to mention tax incentives), which jettison statistics for sentiment.

As Rhodri Davies, head of policy for the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) explains, “An AI with access to vast quantities of data and the ability to analyse it at greater depth and speed than a human ever could is going to add value when it comes to identifying most acute pressure points in terms of social or environmental needs at any given time.”

As with other industries, involving AI in philanthropy is not without potential problems. Do the algorithms reinforce biases? Whose definition of “good” will researchers program an algorithm to prioritize? And can we trust that the data used is accurate and complete?

The burden, then, is on tech developers to create tools that can really and truly access, analyze, and report on broad sets of data with enough accuracy to be useful.

Read the full article about how AI can help philanthropy by Deborah Charatan at Medium.