📨 AI for Social Impact Newsletter

👋 From the Editor

Hi! I’m Joanna. I’m on a mission to help folks in the social impact sector understand, experiment with, and responsibly adopt AI. We don’t have time to waste, but we also can’t get left behind.

Let’s move the sector forward together. 💫

🧠 EDUCATION

• Vibe Coding: Let's start with the basics. Software is built out of code, or written instructions that tell a computer what to do in a particular language (Python, JavaScript, etc.). Traditionally, software developers wrote the code, tested it, fixed bugs, and deployed it. Each of those steps used to require real technical expertise… until vibe coding. Vibe coding is the new shorthand for what happens when a non-technical person describes in plain English to AI what you want to build. Then the AI tool writes the code, tests it, and (with newer tools) even deploys it for you. Some big names in vibe coding right now: Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Google Antigravity, Cursor, Windsurf, Replit, and Lovable.

• Anthropic’s Mythos: All software has hidden bugs that hackers can use to break in, steal data, or take over systems. Historically, finding those flaws has required expertise and months of work. In April, Anthropic announced Mythos, a new version of Claude that can autonomously find previously unknown cybersecurity flaws (called "zero-day vulnerabilities") and exploit them, across every major operating system and web browser. Recognizing how dangerous this could be in the wrong hands, Anthropic chose not to release Mythos publicly and instead launched Project Glasswing, a coalition of companies, including AWS, Apple, Microsoft, Google, JPMorgan Chase, and the Linux Foundation (and even more by the beginning of May), granting them controlled access to find and fix flaws in their systems.

✨ INSPIRATION

• Vibe Coding for Social Impact: Better.sg, Singapore's largest tech-for-good nonprofit, partnered with a Singaporean social enterprise that trains people from disadvantaged backgrounds for food-and-beverage careers. The partner needed a custom CRM platform to enable a network of home-based cafes, and no existing software did what they needed. In six weeks, using Lovable, a team built the full platform. The takeaway: a small volunteer team built and shipped a working platform in a fraction of the time and cost a traditional development project would have required, an incredible capacity multiplier.

• Same Story, Different Ending: A 2025 security audit of 1,645 web applications generated by Lovable, the same tool Better.sg used, found that 170 of those apps (roughly 10%) contained critical vulnerabilities that could expose user data, and a separate study found that 45% of AI-generated code contained vulnerabilities. Better.sg’s vibe coding project involved experienced developers who wrote security-conscious prompts, tested against bugs, and used GitHub for version control so they could roll back if things broke. While vibe coding genuinely lowers the barrier to building, it doesn't lower the barrier to building responsibly.

🚀 ACTIVATION

• Vibe Code Something (Yes, You): The fastest way to understand vibe coding is to try it. Pick a small, low-risk project, like building a simple landing page for an upcoming event. Try Lovable and use a prompt like this: "I work at a [type of organization] focused on [mission]. I want to build [describe the tool in plain English]. Please build it as a simple web page. Use clean, accessible design. Do not include any database or login features for this version, just make it work standalone." The goal of this experiment is to experience the workflow: describe → preview → refine → repeat—and maybe one day ship it to production.

• Level Up With Claude Code: If you're a Claude Pro subscriber and ready to try a more powerful tool, try Claude Code. Anthropic's official quickstart guide walks you through installation. Once you're set up, give it access to a folder on your computer and try a low-stakes prompt like: "I have a folder of spreadsheets from the last five years. Please analyze them and create a single document summarizing the impact metrics and trends, with a citation to which spreadsheet each came from." What makes this different from a chatbot conversation is that Claude Code is reading actual files on your machine, working across many of them, and producing an output.

🤖 What I Asked AI This Week

Hey Claude, do aliens exist?

The math leans toward "something is probably out there somewhere" — billions of galaxies, billions of stars per galaxy, and we already know life happened at least once on a small rocky planet around an unremarkable star.

The part I find most genuinely puzzling is the Fermi paradox — if life is common, where is everyone? The possible answers all have unsettling implications. Maybe intelligent life is vanishingly rare. Maybe it tends to wipe itself out before going interstellar. Maybe everyone's quietly listening and nobody's broadcasting. Maybe the speed of light is just too brutal a constraint and civilizations live and die in their own corners without ever overlapping.

💬 What Do You Think?

This newsletter is meant for you, so I’d love to hear what you think. 💌 Reply anytime!

👀 ICYMI

If you’re new here, welcome! You can check out the archive of past issues here.