Re-generative AI: How new tech can create community impact

It’s safe to say that most people these days have at least a passing familiarity with what is called “generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)”, like ChatGPT, Synthesia and Sounddraw, which process existing information to create new content, images, text and other media. While these inventions can be controversial, they have been almost seamlessly integrated into our everyday lives and are not going away any time soon – so thinking about how to evolve and harness the power of AI seems like a wise next step.

With this in mind, we recently invited a group of cross-industry AI experts to Challenge Works in London, to discuss ways in which AI could be harnessed to benefit individuals and communities via open innovation competitions. Leading specialists in tech, health, environment, social and finance sectors imagined hopeful future scenarios utilising positive AI applications. We considered not only what “positive” AI applications might mean, but also what systemic obstacles and ethical barriers were preventing society from embracing its uses and how to responsibly attend to them.

Three broad areas that participants felt AI had the most potential to address societal needs in were:

• Information empowerment – Assisting people in gaining access to information they need in fast and reliable ways

• Improved efficiency – Addressing barriers and bottlenecks on how we do things

• Behaviour change – Helping us make better and more informed decisions.

Within these conversations, however, we realised that trust, reliability, security, and technological literacy were all important aspects and issues which would need deep consideration for any application of AI, especially within the communities using it.

AI scepticism

New technology will always meet with a certain degree of scepticism, but this can facilitate meaningful reflection, and we need to find ways to work with it. The critical factor is that the people intended as beneficiaries for innovations are in the room when these technologies are being built or developed.  In practice, this is often not the case. And we know that when the end user is ignored, it not only perpetuates untested assumptions, but also creates distrust in the system used to create innovations.

AI is currently an extractive technology, meaning it exhausts resources faster than it replenishes them. One delegate at our event interestingly compared the potential of AI to the devastating impact coal mining had on Wales – where it “diluted culture and deteriorated society”. If technology is connected back to the communities that it is aimed to serve, however, it’s possible for it to become a tool for enrichment and regeneration.

Cases for regenerative AI 

This type of change is already being implemented on a small scale, in one area of Bradford. The Leeds Institute for Data Analytics worked with the Alan Turing Institute to compile as much  anonymised data as they could about the residents and infrastructure of the Holme Wood housing estate, from education and employment data to home and transport access. Then, they took the raw data directly to the community and asked what they wanted to do with it – what did they want to fix, now that their local issues were clear?

Now, instead of hoping country-wide policies will help solve local problems, the Holme Wood community can use this open data as a diagnosis tool. With this being the initial community trialed, it is likely the learnings gained on this project will be useful elsewhere.

One place we have utilised this kind of thinking at Challenge Works is through our own human-centred design process for our open innovation competition the Longitude Prize on Dementia. This is a £4 million prize to drive the creation of personalised, technology-based tools that are co-created with people living with the early stages of dementia, helping them live independent, more fulfilled lives for longer. Just this week, 24 teams have been named as semi-finalists, who will be working with our Lived Experience Advisory Panel, a group of people living with or who are affected by dementia, to co-create AI and machine learning technologies. From navigation tech to smart glasses with facial recognition, this is happening right now, and in collaboration with those who are the predictors of the technology’s success.

This is not just a way to create tech that is usable, it ensures processes are responsibly led, and promises market value down the line because teams already know that people will use the tech coming out of it. The hope is that while we help innovators create meaningful and useful solutions alongside the communities using them, this will also influence how tech is co-created in the dementia field going forward.

As one delegate at our AI workshop said: “If you work directly with communities and embed that into tech, you not only get better tech for those people, but you also enliven the rest of that field of technology.”

Dreaming up ideas for a better future

While re-generative AI is still in its infancy, we have the opportunity and time to understand and address the pros and cons. Through events like these, we aim to explore the concerns associated with the emergence of AI and forge paths to ethical and effective solutions.

Our mission is to run open innovation competitions that will harness a diversity of thought and apply it responsibly to social challenges, and elevate voices that are otherwise unheard. By holding these expert workshops, using the learnings in our recommendations, and continuing to co-create with communities and key stakeholders, we hope to steer innovative solutions toward the best outcomes.

The aim of the Accelerating AI session was to dream up some moonshot ideas that could evolve into future competitions, so watch this space for our new prize ideas or get in touch with yours!

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