Innovating AI Governance:
Shaping the Agenda for a Responsible Future
December 4, 2020
12:00pm - 6:00pm EST / 9:00am - 3:00pm PST
A virtual symposium to discuss the challenges and propose potential solutions to address urgent AI governance and regulatory issues.
An initiative by the Rockefeller Foundation in partnership with the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society at the University of Toronto.
About the Event
Why “Innovating AI Governance”?
As AI-related technologies penetrate ever more aspects of society, the management of AI will be a societal challenge as well as a technical one. Appropriate governance ensures that societal benefits of AI outweigh the risks while ensuring the evolving legal and regulatory systems do not pointlessly impede AI innovation. While several high-profile gatherings and committees have addressed the challenges posed by AI, they’ve tended to focus on high-level principles and ethical guidelines, rather than tangible governance solutions.
The development and deployment of AI must be supported by the appropriate ethical norms, governance structures, and institutional arrangements to ensure that the societal benefits of AI outweigh the risks, that these benefits are distributed fairly, and that AI technologies don’t undermine human autonomy and self-determination. At the same time, it will be important to ensure that the evolving legal and regulatory systems do not pointlessly impede AI innovation. We believe we need to build a community of practice committed to maintaining this balance.
Our Approach
We are convening an intimate community of experts and leaders for a multi-phase initiative anchored by our December symposium, “Shaping the Agenda for a Responsible Future”, and our February prototyping workshop “From Principles to Practice”. We aim to build a constituency that bridges diverse networks that will work together to foster a common understanding of the landscape, raise questions and tensions for consideration, and identify where and how issues can be collectively addressed.
Our ultimate goal is to identify, design and set the stage for the launch of 3-5 concrete projects that prototype effective global governance frameworks for AI. Along the way, we will surface areas warranting further research and innovation that can be advanced through collective field building. Upon the conclusion of the February workshop, we expect to shape a number of projects that are ready for implementation, with a work plan, resources identified, staffing, and a plan for evaluation.
For context on The Rockefeller Foundation's past efforts and current interest in the topic of AI governance, please read this framing note from Zia Khan, Senior Vice President of Innovation.
Convening Agenda
Session 1 - Envisioning Success & Identifying challenges
9:00 am PST / 12:00 pm EST - Session 1 Opening Remarks
9:20 am PST / 12:20 pm EST - Break-outs: What does success look like? How do we get there?
10:30 am PST / 1:30 pm EST - Break-out Group Feedback & Afternoon Preview
10:50 am PST / 1:50 pm EST - Speed Networking
Break
11:10 am PST / 2:10 pm EST - Break (optional small group networking)
Session 2 - From principles to practice
12:10 pm PST / 3:10 pm EST - Session 2 Opening Remarks
12:50 pm PST / 3:50 pm EST - Break-outs: “Excavating the Why” & “What if there were…”
2:00 pm PST / 5:00 pm EST - Break-out Group Feedback
2:15 pm PST / 5:15 pm EST - Session 2 Closing Remarks
2:35 pm PST / 5:35 pm EST - Wrap-up Q&A & Convening Closing Remarks
3:00 pm PST / 6:00 pm EST - End
Preparation Materials
Session 1 - CASBS
In the first session, CASBS will lead breakout discussions to identify new frontiers in research and thinking that can be addressed through collective field building efforts. CASBS prepared reading materials to provide a foundation and catalyst for this discussion. We begin with a short video to orient everyone to this topic and introduce the critical questions posed in the briefs. These briefs ensure we arrive with common language and shared knowledge, specifically related to the concept of “AI,” its historical antecedents, and the mechanisms through which it is deemed trustworthy. In the first brief, “AI level set,” AI experts may wish to skim the historical sketches of first- and second-wave AI but will likely be interested in the final section framing third-wave AI as human-machine partnerships. We have also included the Fluxus Landscape that maps current stakeholders in the field of AI, ethics, and governance. These resources will help us enter the conversation with a common understanding on December 4th.
For Session 1, please be prepared to:
Tell us what you perceive as the most pressing problem involving AI and technology.
Help us identify issues and questions deserving greater exploration through field-building exercises composed of interdisciplinary and cross-sector teams.
Session 2 - Schwartz Reisman Institute
In our second session, SRI will turn towards the practical considerations of innovating AI governance. Through a creative, design-oriented process, the SRI team will lead breakout discussions that will bring a deeper understanding of the challenges underlying successful technology deployments and facilitating a conversation between both subject matter and technical experts to start imagining new pathways forward.
To set the stage for this session, we have prepared a set of briefs that explore and inform the inputs we will consider as we work through these challenges and seek common ground. How do we see these problems playing out in our current global climate? What efforts to implement AI governance have we seen before, and what have been the outcomes? What are components of current or past regulatory regimes and governance institutions that can serve as inspiration? This second set of briefs seek to explore these questions and equip participants with the building blocks we will be using as we introduce the process of building applied AI governance solutions and institutional infrastructure.
Our introductory video gives a brief overview on the process we be using to explore problems and solutions in our session on December 4th and at our full prototyping workshop in February 2021.
Participants
Since we won’t have as much time to get to know each other as we would in person, we’ve prepared a ‘bio book’ of all our participants. Please take a few minutes to look it over and get to know your fellow participants ahead of our discussions on December 4.
Coming Next
Innovating AI Governance: From Principles to Practice
A prototyping workshop Coming February 11 - 12, 2020
Following our December symposium, we will turn our attention to the practical side of our conversations. Our ambition with this initiative is to encourage the research, experimentation, and investment needed to build the regulatory models and facilitators for responsible AI that can be adopted globally, in rich countries and the developing world alike, with primary attention to raising human welfare, ensuring ethical development and use of AI, and protecting fundamental democratic values.
Our goal is to gather a number of innovators who will explore the problem and solution spaces for designated AI governance challenges and generate pilot project proposals.
Organizing Partners
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences is a place where great minds confront the critical issues of our time, where boundaries and assumptions are challenged, where original interdisciplinary thinking is the norm, where extraordinary collaborations become possible, and where innovative ideas are in pursuit of intellectual breakthroughs that can shape our world.
CASBS @ Stanford brings together deep thinkers from diverse disciplines and communities to advance understanding of the full range of human beliefs, behaviors, interactions, and institutions. A leading incubator of human-centered knowledge, CASBS facilitates collaborations across academia, policy, industry, civil society, and government to collectively design a better future.
The Rockefeller Foundation’s mission—unchanged since 1913—is to promote the well-being of humanity throughout the world. Today the Foundation advances new frontiers of science, data, policy, and innovation to solve global challenges related to health, food, power, and economic mobility. As a science-driven philanthropy focused on building collaborative relationships with partners and grantees, The Rockefeller Foundation seeks to inspire and foster large-scale human impact that promotes the well-being of humanity by identifying and accelerating breakthrough solutions, ideas and conversations.
The Rockefeller Foundation has built a reputation as a trailblazer that convenes unlikely partnerships and sparks innovations for transformative change.
The Schwartz Reisman Institute aims to deepen our knowledge of technologies, societies, and what it means to be human by integrating research across traditional boundaries and building human-centred solutions that really make a difference. We want to make sure powerful technologies truly make the world a better place—for everyone.
Comprising diverse areas of inquiry, from machine learning, computer engineering, epistemology, systems theory, and ethics to legal design, systems of governance, and human rights, our research agenda and solutions stream cross traditional boundaries and are fundamentally inspired by a commitment to reinventing from the ground up.
Questions? Get in touch!
Have questions about registration, our event agenda, or any of our pre-read materials? E-mail our registration team at ai-governance@torontosri.ca to get more information.