Animal Welfare Professionals

For those of us in Animal Welfare, AI technology offers a range of new and exciting possibilities to help improve the outcomes of animals in shelters. One area where AI can make a significant difference is in easing the burden of animal marketing, such as automatically creating engaging adoption bios that conform to best practices and crafting social media posts. Using AI-powered language models, animal welfare organizations can produce high-quality, compelling content quickly and easily, saving valuable time and resources. In addition, AI can help smaller, underfunded agencies level the playing field, essentially providing them with their own full-time professional copywriter.

In a stunt that is relatively common in articles about AI, the first two paragraphs of this article were written by AI. It did require some creative prompt writing and additional editing, but the ChatGPT program produced the bulk of the product. While ChatGPT may not be the proto-Skynet technology hyped up by some in the media, it is nonetheless impressive and a game changer. Our industry is often a few steps behind in adopting new technologies, and there are many reasons for this; however, this is a new technology that we should seek to embrace immediately because it will have a lifesaving impact. Those with the resources must put animal welfare professionals in the same room as AI development professionals. Current off-the-shelf programs are impressive, but the real value comes with customization And integration.

I think the lowest-hanging fruit for using AI in animal welfare will be adoption profile writing. Currently, the various AI programs do an ok job of bio writing, but the generic data set does not always produce the best results, and without a well-written prompt, the AI can end up just making things up to make the pets sound nice. This, of course, is not something that we want. However, with a little training data and some expertise in prompt writing and data integration, it seems reasonable that we could end up with a program that automatically takes the information in the shelter management software and writes a truthful, compelling, standards-compliant, and unique bio for every animal. This could be done simply with the right expertise. And for the record, I am not the right expertise when it comes to programming.

There are also plenty of other possibilities with AI. It would take some investment and expert knowledge, but AI could be used to build behavior profiles and training plans automatically. AI could also provide specific, contextual, and accurate behavioral advice to pet parents. AI can also play a role in making our transport system more efficient and effective and finding creative ways to address other supply and demand issues. Probably a dozen more aspects of animal welfare could benefit from investment in AI. I hope our national nonprofit leaders and current for-profit vendors are looking heavily and proactively at this new technology. While there's plenty to work out, including ethical concerns, the lifesaving potential is enormous. Still, please don't take my word for it. I'll let my friend Jasper.AI have the final say (unedited).

"AI offers immense potential to help organizations in the animal welfare sector. From writing compelling animal bios and creating effective marketing content to providing back-end support with data management and logistics, AI can help streamline processes and improve efficiencies within the animal welfare sector. With AI, organizations can focus their resources on activities that require a human touch-saving more lives in the process. By leveraging AI technology, Animal Welfare organizations will be able to bring even more compassion, care, and expertise to their mission of helping animals in need."