(Bloomberg Opinion) — In an era of accelerating progress in artificial intelligence, everyone is debating the implications of AI for laboratory market OR national security. There is much less discussion about what AI can or should mean for philanthropy.

Many (not all) internal now say AGI – artificial general intelligence – has a good chance of happening in the next few years. AGI is a generative AI model that, in intellectually oriented tests, can outperform human experts on 90% of questions. This does not mean that AI will be able to dribble a basketball, make GDP gROW at 40% per annum or, for that matter, destroy we. Still, AGI would be an impressive achievement – ​​and over time, however slowly, it will change our world.

For the sake of objectivity, I will leave aside the universities where I work and consider other areas in which philanthropic returns will become higher or lower.

One big difference is that AI will enable individuals, or very small groups, to run large projects. By running artificial intelligence, they will be able to create entire think tanks, research centers or businesses. The productivity of small groups of people who are very good at running AIs will increase by an order of magnitude.

Philanthropists should consider giving more support to such people. It's certainly difficult, because at the moment there are no easy or obvious ways to measure those skills. But this is precisely why philanthropy can play a useful role. More commercially oriented businesses may avoid making such investments, both because of the risk involved and because the returns are uncertain. Philanthropists have no such financial requirements.

Another potential new avenue for philanthropy in an AI world, as strange as it may sound: intellectual branding. As quality content becomes cheaper to produce, how it is presented and curated (with the help of AI, of course) will become more important. Some media properties and social influencers already have reputations for credibility, and they will want to protect and preserve them. But if someone wanted to create a new brand name for credibility and had a good enough plan to do so, they should receive serious philanthropic consideration.

Then there's the matter of the AI ​​systems themselves. Philanthropy should buy good or better AI systems for people, schools and other institutions in very poor countries. A good AI in a school or municipal office in, say, Kenya can serve as a translator, question-answerer, advocate, and sometimes medical diagnostician. It is not yet clear exactly what these services might cost, but in most very poor countries there will be significant delays in adoption, partly due to affordability.

A good rule of thumb might be that countries that can't always afford clean water will also have trouble affording advanced AI systems. One difference is that the near-ubiquity of smartphones can make it easier to deliver AI.

The strong capabilities of artificial intelligence also mean that the world could be much better in a very long time horizon, say 40 years from now. Maybe there will be amazing new drugs that wouldn't have come out otherwise, and people can live 10 years longer as a result. This increases the return – today – to fixing childhood diseases that are difficult to reverse. A example it would be lead poisoning in childrenwhich can lead to permanent intellectual deficits. Another would be malnutrition. Addressing these problems was already a very good investment, but the brighter the world's future looks and the better the outlook for our health, the higher those returns.

The flip side is that reversible problems should probably decrease in importance. If we can fix a particular problem today for $10 billion, maybe in 10 years – because of AI – we'll be able to fix it for just $5 billion. So it will become more important to understand which problems are truly irreversible. However, philanthropists should focus on long time horizons, so they shouldn't worry too much about how long it will take for AI to make our world a fundamentally different place.

For what it's worth, I asked an AI for the best answer to the question of how philanthropy should change its focus. He suggested (among other ideas) more support for mental health, more work on environmental sustainability and improvements to democratic processes. Sooner than later, we may find ourselves taking his advice.

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To contact the author of this story:
Tyler Cowen at (email protected)