Program subdivides UN Goals into managable projects and names Prizes after participants who use Generative AI to develop new approaches
KYIV, UKRAINE, July 18, 2023 /24-7PressRelease/ — The Daily Hero’s Trek has just been launched to enable individuals to develop innovative AI approaches to our planet’s biggest challenges, while offering a maximum amount of personal fulfillment to participants, with a minimum time commitment. All can join, and participation is free. The program was created by Be the Singularity and Artificial Intelligence for Good, as well as researchers and students from Harvard, NYU, Taras Shevchenko University in Ukraine, Tokyo University, Tsinghua University, University of Delhi, and Oxford.
According to Innovation Director Amy Chang, the program grew out of the efforts of a group of students and researchers who were creating videos for Tiktok for good (Tiktok.com/forgood) in 2019.
“We noticed that if you take something as difficult-seeming as one of the UN’s Sustainability goals, and break it down into a series of micro-projects, which in the beginning were Tiktok videos, you can inspire a huge amount of people quickly, and get them to take action and inspire others. So eventually we realized that the best way to get massive things accomplished for all the UN’s Sustainability Goals was to make the programs small, accomplished in just a few minutes or hours.”
This compression of the time necessary to complete programs really accelerated with the advent of ChatGPT and its rivals.
Daily Hero’s Trek is based on the ‘Hero’s Journey’, as described by anthropologist Joseph Campbell in “The Hero of a Thousand Faces” and other works. According to co-founder Svetlana Shevchenko, “we can accomplish things mythical heroes couldn’t have dreamt of. We use AI in ways that far exceed the typical results achieved by historical heroes— and we do so in a minimum amount of time, usually just minutes. And we can choose a new challenge in another part of the world any time we want, which eventually leads to a feeling that we can effect real change rapidly.”
“The recent explosion in capacity of Generative AI tools makes this possible,” says DHT Education Director J. Toomey. “Our powers have become almost infinite– what’s needed is judgement and wisdom to use them efficiently.”
Instead of Tiktok videos, the main medium used for sharing AI-derived insights is the online course. “Courses can be created quickly with the aid of AI, though humans check every word to avoid AI-generated hallucinations” says Toomey. “And because knowledge grows so rapidly, we re-build and correct the courses twice a month.”
The goals for each Trek are significant enough that they have a measurable impact, but small enough that they can be completed quickly without taking too much time out of one’s day.
Key to the project is that each participant who adopts one of the 170 targets from the UN’s 17 Agenda for Sustainability Goals has an Award named after them. They can confer the prize on individuals, groups, and institutions who contribute significant progress towards that target. “But the real impact–” says Shevchenko– “is that when a person wins an Award devoted to a UN sub-target, THEY can then name another Award after themselves, and confer it on others who contribute significantly to the target. This is what creates an avalanche of interest, and keeps people inspired.”
As soon as a target is chosen, the ‘hero’ uses at least 4 AI platforms to pose the following question: “What are the top 5 challenges associated with __________ [UN target] and what are 5 potential solutions?” Then they ask AIs Delilah, Bard, Bing, Generateideas.ai, and GPT4 to suggest solutions. Some participants use Botsonic, which trains ChatGPT on an individual’s knowledge base data, so that one’s personal store of wisdom can be applied repeatedly to each complex challenge.
“No ancient or modern hero could do that,” says Chang, “not even 10% of it.”
The ‘hero’ chooses one challenge-solution pair and creates a Facebook Group, Twitter account, Linkedin Group, Pinterest page, Threads page, and Instagram Group devoted to it. They ‘seed’ discussions on each platform by asking leading questions like “Who can refine, develop, correct, or add to the solution described?” This means that discourses can delve deeply into each issue with discussants from around the globe. “These UN sub-targets have never received such a vast amount of intelligence directed their way– both Human and Artificial Intelligence” says Chang.
If interest in the UN target is broad enough, participants can host a weekly or monthly discussion group devoted to it on the Daily Hero’s Journey Zoom channel.
The prize winners are acknowledged by Daily Hero’s Trek in press releases and in social media.
See website at dailyherostrek.net.
Twitter: @dailyherostrek
Facebook.com/groups/dailyherostrek
Linkedin.com/groups/dailyherostrek
Pinterest.com/DailyHerosTrek
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Be the Singularity teaches people to embody the melding of the best of human intelligence with AI in a way that enhances human and planetary thriving.
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