Some thoughts on AI.
I’ve been testing AI capabilities, both generative and other types, for over a year now. Before that, I’d been actively avoiding AI due to numerous ethical issues. While those ethical issues still exist, unfortunately, I believe we can’t ignore AI.
So now my aim is to use generative AI in the most ethical and thoughtful way possible. As a result, I’ve put together the following guidelines around our use of AI.
- We value human creativity and thinking over AI pattern recognition and “thinking” because we recognise the value in human imperfection, individuality, slowness and being.
- We believe human relationships are more authentic, powerful and preferable to AI “relationships”. But we recognise there may be times when AI could be used as a substitute due to lack of human resources to fulfil relational, community and operational needs. However, we firmly believe that love and relationships amongst humans is special and superior to what AI can provide.
- We believe that care of humans is more important than pursuing innovation, productivity, efficiency or results at any cost. For this reason, we want AI to enhance and improve the quality of our lives, both personal and at work, not the speed at which we produce or perform anything.
- We don’t want to move fast and break things, we want to move thoughtfully with care for both people and planet.
“Move fast and break things” is the mantra of one well known tech company. I wholeheartedly disagree. I don’t want to break anything, especially not people’s hearts, spirits or mental health. And I don’t want to move fast if it means we’re hurting people in the process.
After a lot of experimentation, I don’t think AI is going to be the huge job-stealing issue for fundraising copywriters that everyone seems to fear. But I do think we need to move the focus off getting AI to do the writing for us (I’ve tried with poor and inconsistent results) and onto how can we make the quality of our copywriting better. And by better, I mean better at connecting with donors, touching hearts and moving people to give. We’re working on various ways to do this that don’t involve getting AI to generate copy faster—or even to generate copy.
Instead, we’re focusing on key parts of the copy development process including how to gain a better understanding of donors and their relationship with both your charity and the people you help.
For us, copy is not an annoying task or output to be ticked off. It is a bridge in your relationship building process with your donors. Sometimes, it is the ONLY bridge or path to your donors. So we’re not using AI to “get copy done faster and more cheaply”. We’re using AI to help us write the most powerful copy possible, backed up with stronger development processes, deeper donor insights and language analysis.
In other words, we’re not getting AI to replicate what we’re doing. We’re using the strengths of AI to help us humans write higher-performing copy.
Searching for a fundraising expert to write brilliant copy for your next appeal? The people at Creagivity are only too happy to help! Get in touch to book an obligation-free meet and greet with our fearless leader, June, at a time of your choosing.
