ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, and three months later, it had more than 100 million active users
In the past, the term AI was known only to aficionados, but lately, it seems inescapable. AI, or artificial intelligence, is, put simply, the attempt to embed human thinking capabilities in technological devices. Recently, the breakthroughs are reaching us – all of us. A generative artificial intelligence is an AI that can create/manufacture, and indeed lately, various tools have appeared in our lives that allow such creation in a matter of seconds.
From painting based only on text, through videos, and up to texts of any style: a song in the genre of our favorite artist, news headlines, and even programming code. A new world has been opened to us, and we need to ensure that everyone benefits from it.
Beyond the products’ level of quality and validity, which is dubious, the revolution has profound and comprehensive social ramifications. These, such as the potential to negatively influence weakened populations, have not been considered as much.
Digital developments are designed for massive amounts of people, and as such, they primarily appeal to the mainstream. Weakened populations often receive marginal consideration, if at all, in the development stages. Digital systems are inclined to reproduce reality – whether because they are created by people who represent reality as they know it or because the databases on which the development relies are not diverse or inclusive and produce a built-in bias in advance. Imagine the insights we could deduce if we had effective databases – diverse and inclusive – in each of the challenges we’re facing.
Additionally, there are personal and systemic blocks related to how one uses the tools; these include digital proficiency, which becomes a more complex skill as the flow of information, including false information, increases, and it is not self-evident even at the most basic level – different payments or booking a doctor’s appointment, for example – for weakened societies.
What is our role in creating change?
The organizational understanding that the JDC work on all levels cannot stay behind, and our organizational innovation must include digital tools and reliance on data to achieve our intended impact has led us to put data and digital as a cross-organizational operation and establish Dida.
Dida, the digital data department, works in close, three-pronged collaboration with JDC-Israel’s divisions:
- To develop the organization’s capabilities themselves, and the infrastructure required for the organization; work processes and standards, training, and technological infrastructure.
- To develop diverse and inclusive digital products emphasizing society’s weakened groups.
- To develop diverse and inclusive data infrastructure in and for the social system and promote digital social policy.
As those who work to use the most innovative means to solve Israel’s urgent social challenges, it is our, JDC employees’, duty to improve our technological capabilities and transform our method of thinking so that social development, which is at the core of JDC-Israel work, will include seizing digital opportunities.
