Lots of fear mongering on the internet suggests “you’re falling behind.”

Falling behind who? Did someone enter you in a race?

People have long given “speed” too much credit. Being fast helps us avoid predators and outrun our enemies but there are lots of ways to move through the world. Sponges, snails, and coral have survived for millions of years. In business, occasionally it is useful to be an early adopter but case studies like Netscape, Myspace and Blackberry should remind us that being first often doesn’t pan out. The bleeding edge is bloody. Often it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.

Framing nonprofit work as a race to adopt AI seems even more ridiculous. Are your funders threatening to cut your funding and donate to your competitors if you don’t embrace AI? Of course not. Most nonprofits will be able to completely ignore AI for the next decade with little to no consequences, just as many waited decades after the dot com boom to create websites or even experiment with digital marketing. So if no one is chasing us, and there won’t be (immediate) consequences for ignoring it, why should we care about AI?

Because we have so much more good to do.

You will be tempted to try to do more things, faster. It used to be hard to write a ten page report, now you can “create” one instantly. It used to be hard to create a slide deck. Now they are immediate. It’s possible that AI will let us do things faster and cheaper, but I’d like to suggest that what the world needs now is not “more” and certainly not more of it faster. We have overwhelmed ourselves on instant gratification.

What the world needs now is something new. When humans get access to new tools, they have a rare opportunity to innovate. To tinker. To experiment. To play.

Instead of doing what you already do faster, maybe use AI to do what you do better. Try spending twice as long on your work, and use AI to make it twice as good. More research. More polish. Tighter. Cleaner. Neater. Use AI to make something fantastic. Build something that you will be proud of 5 years from now.

Don’t adopt AI out of fear; but because it will be fun.

Because we have so much good left to do.

Until next week,

Ted