The year is 2026 and every time I open up my phone I see countless scary headlines of how AI is going to be the end of the human race; jobs are going to be lost; people are getting scammed using deep-fakes; and tricked into buying crappy products they don’t need by an AI influencer. I’m not denying the possibility of any of this.
But what if AI could be used to amplify and scale the good in the world…
Social enterprises and charities now have access to these incredibly powerful tools to scale up their work beyond anything they could have imagined pre-AI.
I’ve recently been thinking how amazing it could be if these enterprises could attract the kind of A-player talent that tech and fast-growing ecommerce businesses could… How much bigger could their impact be if they operated like a fast-growing business instead of a charity?
But now with AI they don’t need these people. They have the tools, they just need to be taught how to use them.
Imagine if your social media feed was flooded with positive stories of businesses doing good. Helping people in need, and solving some of the world’s biggest problems. Instead of the negative news and marketing designed to play on your fears, doubts and insecurities.
Imagine websites that make you feel good for shopping on them because you know that you’re contributing to a better world - you’re reading stories about the impact your purchases are having.
I’m talking about a world where we level the playing field. Right now the fastest movers in AI adoption are going to be the people who want to make a lot of money fast, and I don’t have a problem with that.
But I want the people who want to do good to rise up and seize this moment to scale positivity beyond what has ever been possible pre-AI.
We don’t simply have to accept that AI is going to be bad and that social media has to be a place dominated by hatred and polarity.
Together we can use the power of media, AI and commerce to make the world a better place.