I co-organized the DrupalCon Nonprofit Summit again last week in Chicago. It was a whole day of discussions among Drupal experts and nonprofit staff who are using Drupal in their organizations. The main theme that kept resurfacing was, of course, Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Many organizations have stakeholders demanding that they level up and participate in the “AI revolution” as soon as possible, so as not to get left behind. At the summit, and at DrupalCon in general, I felt the same ambient anxiety that has infused the world more broadly: how do we enhance our websites with AI?
The answer is that AI is just a tool, and it is very likely that it’s not, at least right now, the right tool for your job.
Tim Lehnen, CTO of the Drupal Association, gave some great talks at the summit. In them, and in conversations around the room, those who know the most are encouraging everyone to first ask “why?” before committing to an AI project.
Your Mission is Your Job
AI technology is still evolving, and rapidly. And as Tim put it, transforming your organization with AI is not your job. Your mission is your job. If we’re designing websites in order to take advantage of AI features, bending our work around AI, then we’re designing for machines, not people. We need to keep humans, and our missions, at the center of our work, always.
It was validating to hear other nonprofit technology leaders in the room taking a similar stance to the one we’re taking in our work. We should keep asking questions about the ethics of AI platforms, find the best ones we can, and experiment with using them internally. We all need to continue tracking the way that AI is changing search results, to make sure the sites we build are findable. But should every site we build have AI features ready to go, right now? Not without a really good use case that directly addresses needs of the people you serve with your website.
In short, your organization may have a great use case for using AI now, or soon. But as we always say, instead of leading with technology tools, let’s lead with service to our missions. Let’s always keep asking why we’re building a digital solution, and make sure there’s a solid reason we’re doing it.
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