IGF 2023 WS #299 Community-driven Responsible AI: A New Social Contract

Time
Wednesday, 11th October, 2023 (08:00 UTC) - Wednesday, 11th October, 2023 (09:30 UTC)
Room
WS 4 – Room B-1
Subtheme

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Emerging Technologies
Chat GPT, Generative AI, and Machine Learning

Organizer 1: Yasmin Afina, 🔒Chatham House
Organizer 2: Hillary Bakrie, 🔒United Nations
Organizer 3: Alexander Krasodomski-Jones, Chatham House
Organizer 4: Rowan Wilkinson, Chatham House
Organizer 5: Marjorie Buchser, 🔒

Speaker 1: Hillary Bakrie, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization
Speaker 2: Kathleen Siminyu, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 3: Zoe Darme, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 4: Mahlet Zimeta, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

Moderator

Yasmin Afina, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

Online Moderator

Rowan Wilkinson, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group

Rapporteur

Yasmin Afina, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

Format

Panel - 90 Min

Policy Question(s)

A. How should countries, communities, cities and companies collaborate to guide the beneficial development of AI and ensure that no one is left behind? B. What are the strengths of community-led AI governance, and what might its limits be? C. What multistakeholder, deliberative or open-source technologies and practices could be applied to AI governance by countries, communities, cities and companies?

What will participants gain from attending this session? Chatham House, OSGEY and Google will tap into the IGF’s diverse audience to overcome Western-centric biases and limitations, which tend to dominate the space at the expense of under-represented communities. The session development will also be informed by Chatham House’s AI Taskforce, bringing together voices from six continents and reflecting their local constituencies in their approach. The moderator will also seek to challenge the participants’ assumptions and biases to capture the widest range of perspectives and unearth under-explored and innovative approaches to foster responsible AI. Supported by deliberative technology, the session will provide an opportunity for knowledge sharing, with participants able to better understand how different communities approach and frame the responsible development of AI. The discussions will ultimately enable participants to identify common ground, build bridges across sectors, and catalyse subsequent reflections and initiatives to foster technologies that empower all.

Description:

As AI progress proceeds at breakneck speed, companies, governments and international bodies are recognising that new norms and more inclusive and equitable approaches are needed to measure the impact of these technologies, mitigate risks of harm, and ensure their responsible development and use. Critical to good AI governance will be principles that are at the heart of the IGF, but rare outside: multistakeholder processes, transparency, technical expertise and global cooperation. These principles that will underpin any realistic effort to move beyond models of centralised corporate power or governmental torpor. Building on multidisciplinary research on AI governance, Chatham House, with the Office of the UN Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth (OSGEY) and Google, will host a panel discussion to foster an inclusive and informed public debate, and policy engagement, on how collectives - countries, communities and companies - can frame and guide the responsible development of AI technologies. To this end, this session will (1) provide a stocktaking exercise, examining some of the initiatives and best practices in recent years to push for the responsible development of AI and ensure their fair, equitable use across communities; (2) discuss how to operationalise responsible AI and what it means in practice for young people, vulnerable and marginalised groups; and (3) possible mechanisms for addressing social and policy concerns. Establishing common understanding around key themes, questions and risks, and ensuring diverse and systematic input regarding responsible AI development through this session, will ultimately contribute to global efforts at ensuring that these technologies are built for all, by all, and empower all. The session will pilot a new piece of deliberative technology - pol.is - being tested by Chatham House, pioneering an interactive new approach to the discussion. We expect participants will enjoy and find interesting, and will datafy the session summary published after the event.

Expected Outcomes

The session will feed into Chatham House’s work promoting the responsible development of AI, the outcomes of which will inform key stakeholders part of Chatham House’s wider network. One of Chatham House’s on-going projects will culminate in a paper, which the moderator will introduce at the session, and build on the momentum post-summit to maximise its outreach and impact. Furthermore, Chatham House will use the key takeaways to take the conversation further, including at the 2024 IGF and subsequent Chatham House-held research. Finally, results of the pol.is deliberation will be made public through the session summary. In addition, following OSGEY’s call for meaningful youth engagement in digital development, the outcome of the session will contribute to Office's high-level advocacy and programmes on innovation and technologies. Additionally, insights from the dialogue will further help guide the Office's support to the Our Common Agenda recommendation on Global Digital Compact development and implementation.

Hybrid Format: ​​During the first 30 minutes, each panellist will share their perspectives on the responsible development of AI, building on their respective backgrounds and areas of work (natural language processing for African languages, data rights, AI ethics, youth empowerment). The moderator will then ask panellists to reflect on ways that the responsible development of AI could be operationalised, and introduce the multidisciplinary research undertaken by Chatham House with its High-Level Taskforce on AI & Society. The third and longest part of the session will be a discussion among participants with input from the panellists. To encourage good online/offline participation, both moderators will coordinate, alternating between in-person participants and online. The moderators will also use Pol.is, a web-based deliberation platform, which will allow for direct engagement between participants in the room and online, a pioneering approach we expect to directly remedy the gap between virtual and in-person participants.