Background
In 2021, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched the Tech for Democracy Initiative. As a part of this, ECNL set up the Action Coalition on Civic Engagement in AI Design, to promote a rights-based AI that benefit individuals and communities. The Action Coalition is building upon the work of the ECNL-led MozFest Trustworthy AI Working Group to develop guidance for meaningful participation of CSOs and affected communities in AI development in Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIA) of AI systems.
Our goal
The Action Coalition on Civic Engagement in AI Design seeks to improve:
- the outreach to and quality of stakeholder engagement in the context of human rights impact assessment related to AI design, development and deployment, with emphasis on groups most at-risk from use of technology.
- the understanding of the technologies among stakeholders, particularly about their design, functionality, capability, and limits. We’ll do this by working with diverse stakeholders who can offer insight about human rights realities for users and impacted groups around the world.
- the timing, quality and impact of stakeholder engagement. This will empower genuine collaborative problem solving, which results in practical, human-focused and sustainable design and development.
This will be achieved by:
- collectively identifying challenges, obstacles, and resources gaps for meaningful engagement;
- discussing pathways and potential solutions to overcome the identified obstacles and gaps; and
- producing public outputs and a guidance framework on what it is to understand meaningful engagement between AI developers and stakeholders to the benefit of the larger ‘responsible AI’ community.
This Action Coalition will coordinate its activities with and ensure broad civil society feedback into the Action Coalition on Responsible Technology, led by the Danish Institute of Human Rights.
What we do
In 2022, the Action Coalition will:
- host thematic workshops;
- develop a draft Guidance Framework for inclusion of relevant stakeholders, namely, civil society and impacted communities, in human rights impact assessment for AI, as a model for inclusive development of technology. It will also feed into the work of other relevant Action Coalitions and may be presented to the Biden Democracy Summit, with support from the Danish MFA;
- pilot the draft Guidance Framework. After testing, it will be evaluated and further developed for practical use;
- develop a brief public report.
Action Coalition Partners
This Action Coalition brings together actors who are concerned with or already work on civic engagement and see an opportunity and benefit of sharing existing actions, identify synergies and complementarity, and to align advocacy efforts.
- ECNL;
- Urvashi Aneja (Director, Digital Futures Lab);
- Hilary Sutcliffe (Director, SocietyInside);
- Mathew Mytka (Co-founder & Chief Vision Shaper, Tethix);
- European Disability Forum;
- Prof Alessandro Mantelero (Associate Professor of Private Law and Law & Technology at the Polytechnic University of Turin – EC Jean Monnet Chair in Mediterranean Digital Societies and Law).
Join us
All those wishing to join the Action Coalition – CSOs, academia, industry, individuals - are encouraged to first read the Copenhagen Pledge, as well as:
- Having a commitment to ensure and support respect for human rights in relation to the development and use of technology (cf. Copenhagen Pledge: “Applying our shared democratic values and a human rights-based approach in the design, development, deployment, and use of digital technologies”);
- Deciding which of the key themes that are of particular interest to you (between one and all);
- Contributing your time and expertise in the following activities: Action Coalition workshops, and contributions to or review of Action Coalition publications;
- Sharing lessons learned from your own practices and activities with the Action Coalition and its members.
You may request to join the action coalition by sending an email to Francesca Fanucci or Vanja Skoric, with the heading ‘Action Coalition on Civic Engagement in AI Design’.