The AI dilemma: Can social enterprises innovate without compromising their values?

AI has left many social entrepreneurs with a serious dilemma. The hype around the technology is relentless, with advocates promising it can make organisations both more efficient and effective. But the news about the social and environmental harms of AI keep coming too. 

Many social entrepreneurs can see the potential for AI to maximise their impact, but are unsure if it is possible to do so without compromising their commitment to serve people and planet. But does not using AI mean you’ll get left behind?   

The Social Enterprise World Forum 2025 brought together the world’s leading experts on social enterprise in Taipei in Taiwan, the epicentre of the AI boom, where the vast majority of the most advanced computer chips are made. AI, and how to use it ethically, were right at the top of the agenda. 

The social entrepreneurship movement can help everyone realise we, the people, are already the super intelligence we’re looking for. All we need is to unlock the coordination between us

Pioneers Post partnered with James Gauci, ethical technologist and founder of social enterprise AI consultancy Cadent, to speak to AI experts from across the world at the event about how social enterprises can use the technology to maximise their impact, without going against the very purpose they were set up to achieve. 

• Read more: Why social entrepreneurs must lead the way through the AI moral maze

In the film Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s former minister of digital affairs, who was named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential people in AI, likened humans in the current AI landscape of “addictive intelligence” to “hamsters on a wheel”, running with all their might, but not in control and unable to get off. She championed small scale, open-source AI models as tools which align more readily with social enterprise ethics. 

Tang said: “The social entrepreneurship movement can help everyone realise we, the people, are already the super intelligence we’re looking for. All we need is to unlock the coordination between us. 

“Instead of just talking about acceleration [of AI]: pressing the gas; or stopping AI: pressing the brake, we need to talk about the steering wheel. The steering wheel is how well  a community can have meaningful control.”

Watch the video to discover:

• Why Audrey Tang hopes social enterprise can help develop an ‘ethics of care’ for AI.
• Why civic-tech entrepreneur Nikoline Arns argues that small scale AI models, designed to perform specific tasks, are key to using the technology ethically. 
• How Ayesha Zulfiqar, co-founder of Pakistani medical social enterprise Bioniks, is using AI to power life-changing prosthetic limbs.
• Why Shaun Cumming, co-founder of social enterprise consultancy First Nations Economics, believes data sovereignty is key to empowering vulnerable groups.
• Why Ambika Sangaran, co-founder of Malaysian employment social enterprise Mereka, says social entrepreneurs need to collaborate with the ethical technology community to enable both to deliver greater impact.