Recently, the average media consumer could get the impression that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the next big thing and that it will coin our daily lives in the near future. Numerous developments are currently discussed in newspapers and magazines, TV debates, blogs etc. Some of these developments are said to bring about significant, sometimes even radical changes to different industries, be it health, finance, production etc. The question is:
Will charitable fundraising remain unaffected by these big shifts and everything will stay as it is? We have our doubts but definitely see the need for a differentiated view at the same time. This month’s blog post will provide a quick introduction to artificial intelligence and reflect on it current and possible future role in the context of fundraising.
What is Artificial Intelligence
So, what is Artificial Intelligence? Even a quick web research delivers numerous definitions of which many show certain overlap. Let us proceed with one definition by digital evangelist Ray Kurzweil who said that AI ist the art of creating machines that fulfil tasks that – if they were carried out by humans – would require intelligence. The pictures that come to people´s minds should not be underestimated when it comes to a broader understanding of AI. It can be assumed that many think of so called strong artifical intelligence when they hear the term AI. Strong artifical intelligence implies by definition machines that are actually intelligent just like Data from Star Trek, C3PO from Star Wars or Bender from Futurama. The real-life form of artifical intelligence is so called weak artifical intelligence, machines that show intelligent behaviour to some degree. Weak AI essentially means rule-based systems that have capacity for machine learning.
AI history in a nutshell
The beginnigs of AI go back to the early days of modern information technology. You might know Alan Turing from your studies and/or the movie The Imitation Game (showing how Turing and his fellow experts significantly contributed to the Allied victory in WWII). He suggested a test now named after him to find out whether the respective opposite is a machine or a human.
In the same year, Isaac Asimov wrote the novel I, Robot and suggested the Three Laws of Robotics. Asmiov´s work is a good example of the overlap between technoclogical advances in AI and their dramatization in popular culture.
From the beginning oft he 1950ies onwards, AI technology evolved gradually, It was, for instance, as early as 1974, i.e. 45 years ago, when the Stanford AI lab introduced the first prototype of a self-driving car. A growing audience saw Deep Blue beat chess world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997. A bit more than a decade later, in 2011, Siri, Google Now und Cortana were introduced almost at the same time.
What about the future? There are developments than can be forseen. Sooner or later self driving cars will be introduced, translation algorithms as well as image and text recognition will gradually become better etc. When it comes to the long-term perspective, there are different positions. Elon Musk, from Tesla for example goes as far as to term AI as a potential threat to the existence of the human race. Andrew Ng, a machine learning evangelist, says that fearing the rise of killer robots is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars.
What are the functions of AI?
To put it in an anthropomorphic, i.e. human-like sense, AI can nowadays do the following:
From a more functional perspective, AI capabilites can be summarized as follows:
It has to be moreover noted that AI is not a monolithic and distinct technology but a bundle of different technologies, methods and algorithms. This is reflected by the different sub-areas:
Although AI is an ambiguous field, there are certain research areas and big topics that can be identified:
What AI is able to do - and how it might change the game
Many think tanks, consultancies and companies deal with the future potential and development of AI across industries. A quite recent study by Mc Kinsey deals with the impact of AI on different sector and functions.
AI can do an impressive lot of things nowadays, be it agriculture, medicine, finance, law etc. Business Insider have put together a compact list with some 50 examples, all with a link for further reading.
Expectation levels are definitley high when it comes to the potential of AI– which brings about the risk of exaggerated hopes and fears at the same time. Inspiried by a blogpost on datasciencecentral, a blog we can really recommend, we find it worthwhile to reflect on 6 common myhts regarding AI:
So what? The case of charitable fundraising organizations
To put it very generically, FR organizations can be seen as entities that link needs (be it children at risk, endagered animals or the environment) with supporters. As a consequence, there are three major pillars – the need, the oranization and the supporters (or, to be exact, the communication and interaction with them) in which AI might contribute.
We found three inspiring examples from different organizations how AI – also at small scale and in a hands-on manner – can contribute close to the need of charitable organizations.
The organization and its processes
This is the „internal“ view and it is therefore hard to find promiment good practice examples on the web. Generally speaking, AI has the potential to help improce payment processes, fulfilment processes, etc. These processes are often rather „generic“ to a certain extent and therefore comparable to the profit sector – which is an opportunity when it comes to available tools, expertise etc.
Donor Communication and Fundraising
Many topics we have covered in this blog so far, be it churn analyses, donor clustering, dealing with unstrcutured data, data visualization etc. can be attributed to artificial intelligence in a broader sense and can be potentially applied in afundraising context. AI in fundraising might therefore mean using advanced algorithms and data science methods for donor data.
There are also other applications of AI in todays fundraising context.
The American version of Amazon’s Alexa is now able to trigger donations through voice commands. Numerous organizations have started using chatbots to enhance their touchpoints with donors.
So, what to do now? Public Enemy already rapped “Don’t believe the hype” in 1988. So, should the fundraising sector lean back and watch other industries chasing after supposed AI innovation? We do not think so - but instead of thinking about big investments in the first place, we find it recommendable gradually start building know-how, run tests and create prototypes at a smaller scale. If you need support or resources, get in touch with a reliable partner that knows your organizations and whom you have a sustainable relationship with. As far as conferences, blogs, books etc. about AI are concerned, there is nothing that holds one back - so why not start dealing with AI for fundraising in 2019?
Speaking of 2019: As the year is still quite young, we wish you and your colleagues a happy, healthy and successful new year!
P.S. for joint systems clients: This blog post is an extract of a keynote I have delivered recently. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you are interested in diving deeper into the topic or learning about our service and product portfolio.