Welcome to our first blog in a series of seven about our views on how the nonprofit community should be thinking about Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Every day we see a lot of hype in the media on how AI is a game-changing technology. I thought it would be valuable to briefly review other technologies that were hailed as “game-changing” in the past 30-years, and how that all worked out.
Here are some game-changing technologies that lived up to the hype:
• The internet.
Other than the moon landing in 1969, the internet is the biggest technological achievement of my lifetime. I was a grad student in 1990 when I was first introduced to the internet. At that time, one had to apply to the University to have access to the internet. This is when the internet was mainly real-time bulletin boards (websites with pictures required a lot more bandwidth than a 1200 BOD modems could handle). I recall watching a bulletin board with live race updates on the Tour de France. How cool was that!
There is no doubt in my mind that the internet was and continues to be a transformative force.
• Smartphones.
It’s hard to imagine that just 20-years ago, smartphones did not exist. Sure, we had cell phones back then. But when Apple introduced its iPhone, comprehensive mobile computing was finally delivered to the masses.
I remember the first day I had an iPhone, I was walking in Piedmont Park in Atlanta. I took a picture of a lovely garden view and texted it to my wife, Sonya. Instant karma.
• GPS.
One of my great stress points is being lost. So, I LOVED maps. I used to print out dozens of maps before every business trip, so I could make it to client meetings without worrying about being lost. At first, I thought GPS technology was just for people who were geographically challenged. However, soon everyone had mini-TV sized Garmin GPS in their car. Of course, smartphones replaced these items, but still, GPS was a game-changer.
Now, for some game-changing technologies that did not quite meet expectations:
• Segways.
When Segways were first introduced, it was hyped as the next mode of personal transportation. Twenty-five years later, the only ones seen riding these things are parking cops and tourists.
• Google Glasses.
Google Glasses and augmented reality were all the rage in 2013. They were predicted to change how we see the world. Nope.
• Blockchain for Everything.
While blockchain has been an important innovation for crypto currency, there was a time when it was predicted that blockchain technology would disrupt everything from healthcare to finance. Again, it didn’t materialize that way.
When I asked AI what was common among these game changing technologies that had failed, it provided these three bullet points (AI answers in Italics):
1. Market Readiness: Even the most advanced technologies can fail if the market is not prepared to embrace them. Cultural, economic, and societal factors play a critical role in adoption. Game changing technologies only succeed when people can easily see the advantages of using them.
2. Affordability Matters: High costs often serve as significant barriers to mainstream success, limiting a product’s reach to niche markets. Unless the game changing technology is significantly cheaper than the current methods, it might face some challenges in being widely adopted. (This isn’t always the case though! Think of $6 lattes….)
3. Practicality Over Hype: Technologies must address real-world needs effectively. Novelty alone rarely sustains long-term success. Don’t forget, a lot of the enthusiasm you see from these technologies are being pushed by groups that have a keen economic interest in seeing them become mainstream.
So, when one considers AI in the context of other game-changing technologies of this century, we believe it is prudent to be cautious. “Game changing” technologies often fail to deliver on their initial hype. AI has some applications in our nonprofit space (it did a good job summarizing above). But I’m not convinced, as Nathan Chappell & Scott Rosenkrans (the authors of Nonprofit AI) suggest, that AI will change our world on the scale of the introduction of electricity.
Part II of this blog series will address the challenges of AI accessibility.