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There have been a number of high-profile resignations from major AI companies in recent months - employees leaving them in protests, arguing that the tools that they helped build might go as far as end humanity within the next decade. But at the same time, there are some people trying to use AI for good. NPR's Jenna McLaughlin brings us one story.
JENNA MCLAUGHLIN, BYLINE: At a recent human rights hackathon in Washington, D.C., activists, developers and AI agents form what might seem like an unlikely team.
EVAN MAWARIRE: This is part of the dissonance of being an activist and trying to figure out how to work with AI. It's like trying to tame a dog - like a big, vicious dog - and now you have to tame it because, apparently, you have to take it on walks now.
MCLAUGHLIN: Evan Mawarire, a pastor from Zimbabwe, was working on something pretty straightforward, a scheduler tool aimed at helping activists carve out time for breaks. It's a little weird to him using technology to try and make that happen. He's more comfortable being on the other side, fighting the government's surveillance apparatus for one. But he says he's learning that technology isn't inherently evil. It's not alive or animal. It's a tool, and he can use it, too.
MAWARIRE: If activism is going to be effective, it also has to evolve.
MCLAUGHLIN: Mawarire is one of 10 activists from around the world who has come to Washington to work with the Human Rights Foundation and a team of developers to compete to see who can make the best digital tool for activists to solve real-world problems. And each team gets to use their own AI assistant.
In the past, hackathons like this might lead to a proof of concept, something that would require a lot more money and time from technical experts and deep-pocketed donors to later bring to life, if at all. But with AI coding agents to speed up the process, teams are able to build things they can use in just two days. I pop into the room where Biljana Spasovska, a civil society leader from North Macedonia, was working with her team on a database documenting attacks on civic spaces.
Ran out of coffee.
BILJANA SPASOVSKA: Imagine. Already. And it's only 4.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Everyone...
MCLAUGHLIN: Oh, no.
I met one of the developers, Lisa Neigut, who introduced herself by her online moniker of Niftynei.
LISA NEIGUT: I feel like we have a real opportunity to produce something that is really useful. One thing that's pretty fun, and that we did really quickly, is we already have a domain name.
MCLAUGHLIN: Neigut is part of the bitcoin and open-source software development community, which was well represented at the hackathon. Much of that group believes deeply in cross-border aid and financial freedom - values they share with many human rights defenders. Neigut says for developers like herself, AI is concerning because it's allowing attackers to find flaws in software fast. But using AI could let coders find and fix those flaws first. Meanwhile, large language models, or LLMs, were actively helping her build an online database for activists.
NEIGUT: We're finding all, like, just, like, decades of old vulnerabilities right now, and there is a future point where we'll actually be more secure than we've ever been. And working with, like, coding agents and LLMs makes everything a little bit easier than it used to be.
MCLAUGHLIN: I also talked to a Tibetan activist building a tool that would allow protesters to document what they see on the streets in real time, uploading evidence to a secure cloud server in case their phone is lost or compromised. The atmosphere is full of excitement.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Wander and barge in...
MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: ...On folks. I definitely want - I was going to...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: You want to talk to activists now?
MCLAUGHLIN: Totally.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah.
MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah, let's do it.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Yeah, you've got to be able to help us...
MCLAUGHLIN: I meet Carine Kanimba of Rwanda, the secretary general for the prodemocracy network World Liberty Congress. When I visit her team's war room, I see an image of a soccer jersey and ask what that has to do with human rights or technology.
CARINE KANIMBA: There's a lot of countries that use sports as a way to whitewash their image.
MCLAUGHLIN: Her team is building a website called Behind the Jersey that shows fans the money behind their favorite teams, with information about the sponsor's human rights record. Her father is a noted Rwandan opposition figure who sheltered people at his hotel during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Kanimba has a particular focus on the Rwandan government's contracts with top-rank soccer teams as the government now faces accusations of fueling a civil war in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo - accusations it denies, despite evidence to the contrary.
KANIMBA: Now we're just thinking about the joys of the sports and the excitement behind it and not necessarily associating Rwanda with that rather than with the reality that it's trying to hide.
MCLAUGHLIN: Kanimba's project ultimately won the day, and her website is already live, showing how fast people paired with AI tools can make an idea into reality. Jen McLaughlin, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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