The issues are formidable. However the process was supposed to simplify fixing them:
Use AI — synthetic intelligence — to discover a resolution to some of essentially the most urgent issues affecting Milwaukee communities.
About 20 individuals sat at desks, huddled over papers and laptops, with some feverishly tapping away with their thumbs on cell telephones, utilizing AI to deal with issues like meals shortage, nonprofit funding sustainability and even enhance kinship amongst residents in hyper-segregated communities.
The problem was a part of the Hack for Hope hackathon — considered one of many classes held throughout Wednesday’s Fairness in Tech Summit on the College of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
It was the flagship occasion in a sequence of actions held all through October as part of Wisconsin Tech Month, which spotlights improvements and creativity within the state’s tech trade.
Hack for Hope introduced group stakeholders and technologists collectively. Utilizing AI know-how like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude by Anthropic, the members — damaged into 4 groups — designed web sites, cell apps and even one thing so simple as a marketing strategy to deal with these issues.
The aim was to help individuals overcome their fears about AI whereas displaying its potential, mentioned Nadiyah Johnson, founding father of Milky Way Tech Hub, a company with a mission to create an ecosystem to assist individuals of colour within the tech house.
“I feel a technique to enhance adoption of any modern know-how is to help individuals see how helpful it might be of their day-to-day lives and inside their communities,” Johnson mentioned.
To handle meals shortage, one staff created an internet site the place eating places would enroll to donate leftover meals after which vehicles would ship the meals to distribution facilities in areas of want.
“What’s attention-grabbing about this occasion is that leveraging synthetic intelligence, members are studying how rapidly we will ideate and prototype to resolution for some of the most important issues plaguing our metropolis,” Johnson mentioned.
The occasion additionally served as a educating software to use AI. The groups realized how to “immediate” for synthetic intelligence by including context and asking sure questions to get one of the best output. The groups can protoyype or visualize the options by making a workflow diagram, a clickable demo, a type or templates or webpages utilizing HTLM or CSS.
AI, she famous, helps speed up the prototyping course of.
“What can take weeks or longer can occur in a hackathon like this,” Johnson mentioned.
Nonetheless, she mentioned she understands that worry exists round AI, however she hopes hackathons like this help individuals see the potential on this quickly rising know-how. Even for big social ills like racism, poverty or inequities in marginalized communities, Johnson mentioned AI may even lead to concrete concepts not considered earlier than.
“It’s time to embrace it, its energy and its skill to deal with some of those crucial issues,” she mentioned. “It does have unbelievable potential to help us ideate, to solve issues that might take a very long time to deal with.”
Brian Mckee, pastor of Metropolis of Gentle Church, gave the hackathon its greatest process. He wished to see if AI may solve challenges associated to the inequity that leaves communities segregated.
The group tasked together with his problem created an internet platform that lists societal considerations and the way individuals can join to deal with them.
“They did an excellent job constructing a draft software that would help to start to deal with inequities in a hyper-segregated area in america,” mentioned Mckee, who works in cybersecurity.
His church partnered with Milky Method Tech Hub to sponsor the hackathon.
For the previous couple of years, his church has introduced individuals collectively to perceive root causes plaguing communities of various socioeconomic backgrounds.
Mckee believes AI might be a software to sort out advanced issues like poverty and segregation. He is already seen the ability of know-how to impress individuals round a trigger. In 2020, Mckee’s church partnered with Milky Method Tech Hub to design a software that introduced metropolis and suburban residents collectively to advocate for banning police chokeholds.
It stemmed, he mentioned, from the demise of George Floyd and the rebellion that adopted through the pandemic. That effort, he mentioned, together with others led to Gov. Tony Evers signing a bill that bans police chokeholds in the state.
“We have been ready to use … that know-how to make a distinction that means,” Mckee mentioned.
Jasmine Johnikin, founding father of As I Am Mentoring Inc. in Milwaukee, mentioned she was skeptical about how AI may help her 2-year-old nonprofit. Now, she’s a believer.
Her nonprofit mentors highschool college students, serving to them discover their goal by means of character-building and experiences to help them navigate life.
Johnikin informed the members she desires to develop her nonprofit however is challenged by funding, recruitment and retention issues. The staff that tackled her problem used AI to create a number of webpages to permit donors to select causes to assist and hyperlinks to make monetary contributions. The group additionally created a recruitment webpage, itemizing the nonprofit’s hiring wants.
“At first, I simply thought concerning the unfavorable (of AI), however you have got to be open-minded,” Johnikin mentioned.
Johnikin, who admits she’s not tech-savvy, desires to understand how to higher use AI to help her nonprofit.
“Despite the fact that there are some fears, there are some optimistic points to this know-how,” she mentioned. “We are able to use it for our benefit. We shouldn’t shrink back from it. It’s right here and it’s not going wherever. So, we have to alter.”