Anthropic is partnering with Binti, a startup that helps social workers manage their cases.<\/p>\n
SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Paperwork is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to meaningful social work, the kind that places at-risk kids in loving families. The process of gathering and filling out forms for court documents, family assessments, referrals for housing programs and more delays the actual work of supporting and improving the wellbeing of those in need.<\/p>\n
Anthropic thinks AI can help. The company has partnered with Binti, a startup providing a digital platform for more than 12,000 social workers across some 550 government social service agencies, to build out new tools to help them manage their cases more easily.<\/p>\n
One feature will transcribe recordings of social workers\u2019 meetings with families (with their consent), and use that information to fill in paperwork like administrative reports. The social worker can also upload handwritten case notes that the AI can use to fill in forms. They must then approve the AI-generated draft or make changes, to ensure the software didn\u2019t insert any errors. Another feature will let social workers upload everything related to a case, including forms, notes, case data and agency policies. Then the worker can \u201cchat\u201d with their case to ask it questions and get quick answers without having to sort through hundreds of pages of documents.<\/p>\n
\u201cSocial workers got into this field to help children and families,\u201d Binti CEO and cofounder Felicia Curcuru told Forbes. \u201cAnd they hate the paperwork, universally.\u201d<\/p>\n
The partnership is Anthropic\u2019s first foray into government social work, an unglamorous sector that normally doesn\u2019t receive much attention, let alone high-tech tools. It\u2019s part of Anthropic\u2019s AI for Social Good program, an initiative launched by the company in May that aims to provide AI tools and support to companies and nonprofits that are working toward societal impact, but might not be as buzzy or commercially successful as other startups. “When we founded Anthropic, we believed AI could transform lives in meaningful ways,\u201d CEO Dario Amodei said in a statement. \u201cSeeing Binti help connect children with loving families faster by cutting through months of paperwork is exactly the real-world impact we hoped to enable.”<\/p>\n
AI has already started impacting industries ranging from healthcare and law to customer service and computer science. But Anthropic\u2019s interest in government social work illustrates its ambition for an even wider scope. That could impact the labor force, which Amodei has not been shy about addressing. Earlier this year, he said<\/a> AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and spike unemployment up to 20% within the next five years.<\/p>\n Asked about the possibility of Claude eventually taking the job of social workers, Elizabeth Kelly, head of Anthropic\u2019s AI for Social Good program, emphasized the value of \u201chuman connection.\u201d \u201cIt’s important to be clear that AI is about enabling people,\u201d she told Forbes.<\/p>\n \u201cSocial workers got into this field to help children and families. And they hate the paperwork, universally.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Felicia Curcuru<\/p>\n Kelly, a former Biden administration official who previously ran the U.S. AI Safety Institute, declined to disclose the exact terms of the partnership with Binti. But she said members of the program can typically receive token credits, marketing resources, help with go-to-market strategies and access to Anthropic\u2019s technical team, which can assist with things like prompt engineering and fine tuning.<\/p>\n