Best Of
Re: AI Generated Responses from Applicants
I recognize this is an older post now, but thanks for posting this @CarissaGump - this is something we have been dealing with a lot lately, and we are thinking over the AI policy that we have yet to create but desperately need now. And thank you @MichelleCollins for sharing the policy from TAG.
I posted something on this general topic a couple of years ago (https://community.foundant.com/funders_community_foundations/discussion/2229/new-issue-a-i-or-ai-generated-responses-to-grant-questions-what-do-you-do) and learned about ZeroGPT to test responses. We are a private foundation using GLM, so we are using a simple sequence of narrative questions in our applications. In the last 6 months though, our open process has received hundreds of requests using AI - which have generally thought was fine to help save time for applicants, but not when the entire request is written this way. We don't know how to draw the line on whether we should have a flat-out "No AI" policy, or put a statement out that says something like "applying for a grant when you are not a fit, and using AI to try to fit" is not a good solution. Our reviews are getting considerably more complicated and we are conflicted.
We have considered (though not officially implemented) the teacher's hack of adding in an obscure and unique element within the question prompt using transparent text, so that -if they are copying and pasting and not checking their work- will make it apparent that the request is a quick attempt at applying. This way we could potentially catch the issue before spending too much time analyzing the request. We are not sure if this perhaps a passive aggressive approach, or, considering the circumstances of our limited ability to process such a high volume of requests, this is still a fair means of processing applications. We do wish to be using Trust Based Philanthropy practices, but I am not sure if others using TBP practices are getting this high volume and are also stuck.
If anyone has the solution, we are all ears!
I will check out the recording from the Foundant Summit that was shared on another post, thanks @JakeSharp
https://hub.foundant.com/vimeo-all-product-and-corporate-videos/summit-2024-keynote-with-amrit-saxena
