There’s been a lot of news recently about the potential harm artificial intelligence poses to humanity. But can the new technology’s powers also be used to solve some of the problems communities face?
That’s the question to be answered at the upcoming Hack for Humanity.
“The aim of the Hack is to try to solve problems for the community,” said Fabio Garcia, founder of the Fredericksburg chapter of the AI Collective, a global grassroots nonprofit working to navigate the rapid acceleration of AI.
“How can we leverage this technology to help small businesses and government in Fredericksburg and the surrounding areas to grow?”
During the daylong event at the University of Mary Washington, which takes place on Saturday, Oct. 24, teams of two to four people will take a real problem submitted by local jurisdictions, groups and businesses and create a working demo that solves the problem. Judges will name winners at the end of the day, and those teams could be featured in the AI Collective’s newsletter, which has more than 300,000 subscribers.
The AI Collective is hosting Hack for Humanity events around the world this fall. The Fredericksburg event is co-hosted by UMW’s Center for AI and the Liberal Arts.
“This is a great event for students to be able to look at how they can think about public service in general — which is an important part of what we try to instill in our students — and also about how they can use new tools towards that end,” said Anand Rao, professor of communication and digital studies at UMW and director of the center. “This is part of the mission of the center: making sure we’re preparing students for an AI world, making sure they know how to use the tools, but also their potential for societal disruption.”
It’s even possible that Hack for Humanity participants will be asked to use AI to solve a problem caused by AI, Rao said.
“I certainly anticipate some of the problems will be AI-related or technology-related,” he said. “We want participants to think about the benefits and potential capabilities, and to also think about the limits — when they should be deploying or using AI. And the hackathon is a great chance to have that conversation.”
Organizations and businesses can still submit a “use case” for event participants to solve. So far, the city of Fredericksburg, the town of Quantico, and Sunshine Ballpark are among the groups to have submitted use cases, Garcia said.
The Fredericksburg Free Press has also submitted a use case, asking a team to build a closed, interactive chatbot trained on the publication’s reporting to answer readers’ questions about local data center development.
Garcia has led several area workshops demonstrating AI capabilities and said he’s witnessed many “light-bulb moments” in which the tools unlocked a person’s creativity.
“It’s incredible to see that … we want to build on that” during the Hack for Humanity, he said.
Rao said events like these create spaces to explore AI’s potential — to and have conversations about its dangers.
“It’s rarely a binary. It’s almost always something in between,” he said. “We’re not saying we want you to use AI because it’s great, but we want you to be able to use it because it’s so much bigger than what leaders in AI are talking about. This is a great opportunity to take that on and think about what it means, so it doesn’t make use of us.”
Garcia said AI can bring a prosperous future, but the same capabilities can be used for harm.
“The mission of the AI Collective in Fredericksburg is to educate folks on how to use it for the betterment of the community,” he said.
Registration is still open to participate in the event. It’s free and builders of all skill levels are welcome. Participation is capped at 50. Teams will have six hours to solve their problem, and mentors will be in the room to assist as permitted. The event runs 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Hurley Convergence Center Digital Auditorium on the UMW campus.
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