LettersHow Hong Kong can make AI a force for positive social change

In your pages, you have regularly spotlighted the promise – and peril – of artificial intelligence. But the current debate too often pits innovation’s momentum against ethics, framing AI merely as a risk to be managed. We need a new paradigm. Enter prosocial AI: not AI for good, but AI that is deliberately designed to be good.

Prosocial AI is a strategic framework that embeds positive social, environmental and human-centred outcomes directly into an AI system’s architecture rather than layering ethics on as an afterthought. It moves us beyond checklists to measurable impact.

Why does this matter to Hong Kong, especially as it seeks to lead in finance, innovation and sustainability? First, it strengthens legitimacy. In an era of growing distrust around opaque algorithms, an AI system seen as deliberately beneficial fosters public confidence. Second, it offers resilience: prosocial AI pre-emptively addresses systemic risks – bias, inequality, unfettered automation – before they crystallise into crises. Third, it unlocks new value: when AI amplifies human creativity rather than replaces it, we glimpse jobs of the future that are more humane and meaningful.

Purpose, resilience and optimisation can be aligned so that both enterprise and society benefit. The four pillars of prosocial AI – human empowerment, inclusivity, ecological care and ethical accountability – create guardrails without stifling innovation.

Critics will say this is idealistic – too soft for a hypercompetitive environment. Yet the opposite is true: without it, AI may snowball into disempowerment, polarisation or digital extraction. Yet we have a choice. Connecting prosocial AI to the UN’s (unfulfilled) Sustainable Development Goals puts us in a position to make the transition to a hybrid future not only ethically sound, but practically actionable. Hong Kong has the regulatory, technological and financial muscle to pioneer prosocial AI.