AI Governance Multi-stakeholder Convening

Abstract

This chapter offers reflections and advice on AI ethics and governance from a year spent leading Partnership on AI’s multi-stakeholder Affective Computing and Ethics project, involving more than 200 engineers, scientists, lawyers, privacy and civil rights advocates, bioethicists, managers, executives, journalists, and government officials, mostly in the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union, in discussions about AI related to emotion and affect and its potential impacts on civil and human rights, with a goal of developing industry best practices and better technology policy. The author’s reflections from that year draw lessons on convening, multi-disciplinary collaboration, and affective computing and AI ethics and governance. The chapter offers a blueprint for creating the shared knowledge foundation non-technical participants need to apply their expertise. It presents question exploration as a tool for evaluating ethics risk and using “What is notice good for?” shows how a well-chosen question can serve as a catalyst for group or individual exploration of the issues, leading to insights and answers. It includes a curated list of 42 questions, catalysts for AI and ethics discussion for industry, university, news media, and policy teams; multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder AI ethics and governance convenings; and for individual writing and thinking, to take scholars and practitioners a step beyond or to the side of what they have been thinking about—about AI and ethics.