Amplify Good Work: Effective, Ethical AI for Mission-Driven Work

This is a thoughtful, clear, inspiring roadmap for organizations navigating AI’s promise and pitfalls. A valuable resource for mission oriented practitioners." - Paige Fullman, Host of "Current Affairs Unfiltered"Are you caught in an AI tug-of-war?Nonprofits, government agencies, and social impact companies are feeling tension between enthusiasts who see artificial intelligence as a way to do more good work and skeptics who worry that it will undermine that work.When they see this tug-of-war in their teams, many leaders drop the rope, resulting in a policy-free free-for-all that leaves the organization vulnerable to reputational, legal, and ethical risks or a ban that no one follows (and a secret free-for-all).In Amplify Good Work, Dr. Karen Boyd offers a judgment-free, practical guide to turning down the temperature on AI conversations in mission-driven teams and finding ways to protect and even advance critical human values with AI implementations. Drawing on over a decade of experience in mission-driven sectors and AI ethics research, Dr. Boyd provides a framework to for readers to build their own, durable judgment that will support confident judgment about AI as the technology continues to change.Inside this book, you’ll discover:A Mission-First Strategy: Why values-centered AI policy and practices are critical to your work, and how to build a strategy that protects your mission and community trust.The Values Framework: How AI impacts your mission-critical values, including privacy, sustainability, equity, social connection, and much more, and how to mitigate those risks. You’ll also learn how to use AI to reduce bias in your business processes, reduce your environmental impact, and advance other values. Human vs. AI Strengths: What can AI do, and what are we better at? You’ll learn how to identify and defend human-only tasks and how to use AI as a scaffold while keeping human control of quality. When you’re done reading, you’ll not only be able to use AI more ethically, but also confidently identify and protect human-only tasks. Practical Implementation: A step-by-step playbook for assessing readiness, prioritizing use cases, designing and piloting AI implementations, and managing the human change that AI brings to a team.Unlike generic AI guides or sales pitches from tech companies, Amplify Good Work speaks directly to the challenges facing mission-driven organizations. When your work depends on community trust and you serve people with limited recourse if things go wrong, the stakes of AI implementation are genuinely high. If AI gets it wrong, your community member doesn't get the wrong pair of socks, they could be losing out on housing, food, or job placement assistance.Whether you are an enthusiast looking for new ideas, a skeptic looking for support, or a leader who needs to manage a team with both, this book gives you the tools to amplify your effort without compromising your values. Read more