Session
Organizer 1: Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 1: Rachel Judhistari, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: 'Gbenga Sesan, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 3: Malavika Jayaram, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: 'Gbenga Sesan, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 3: Malavika Jayaram, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Format
Roundtable
Duration (minutes): 60
Format description: A 60-minute roundtable discussion will facilitate egalitarian discussion and exchange of ideas and experiences among participants. The central purpose of this session is for panelists to share core ideas and experiences from their perspectives as a means to facilitate and encourage more substantive discussion, sharing, and brainstorming among participants with the ultimate goal of identifying principles to guide how stakeholders with similar values can work to shape AI policy at the international and national levels.
Duration (minutes): 60
Format description: A 60-minute roundtable discussion will facilitate egalitarian discussion and exchange of ideas and experiences among participants. The central purpose of this session is for panelists to share core ideas and experiences from their perspectives as a means to facilitate and encourage more substantive discussion, sharing, and brainstorming among participants with the ultimate goal of identifying principles to guide how stakeholders with similar values can work to shape AI policy at the international and national levels.
Policy Question(s)
How can public policies and regulations facilitate an AI ecosystem where human rights are upheld and the public interest is advanced?
How can upholding human rights in the AI ecosystem lead to higher quality and more representative AI?
What principles should guide how stakeholders with similar values can work to shape AI policy at the international and national levels.
What will participants gain from attending this session? Participants will gain new perspectives on how decentralized online communities around the world contribute to generative AI technologies and are central to fostering more linguistically and culturally diverse AI. Participants will also learn about the emerging challenges related to public policy and regulatory debates concerning AI in specific jurisdictions, which may be relevant or applicable to ongoing debates in their own. Finally, participants will contribute to a common set of principles to guide how stakeholders with similar values can work to shape AI policy at the international and national levels.
Description:
Amid the emergence of countless new generative AI tools and Large Language Models, the digital commons and collaboratively curated knowledge projects are playing a vital role as data sources for chatbots, AI agents, and other cutting edge tools that require access to human verified information. Increasingly, for-profit companies are reliant on the work of decentralized communities like those that govern Wikipedia to train and monetize these new generative AI tools, inextricably linking the two in a relationship with competing and sometimes divergent interests. Governments and other internet governance stakeholders will inevitably play an important role as referees in this arena through policy and regulation. How can public policies and regulations facilitate an AI ecosystem where human rights are upheld and the public interest is advanced? How can upholding human rights in the digital commons lead to higher quality and more representative AI? This workshop will explore these themes and how online communities like those supported by Wikimedia Foundation are working to uphold human rights as it deploys AI to advance its free knowledge mission. Participants will discuss challenges that self-governing online communities are encountering in these regulatory debates and brainstorm a common set of principles to guide how they work to shape AI policy at the international and national levels.
Amid the emergence of countless new generative AI tools and Large Language Models, the digital commons and collaboratively curated knowledge projects are playing a vital role as data sources for chatbots, AI agents, and other cutting edge tools that require access to human verified information. Increasingly, for-profit companies are reliant on the work of decentralized communities like those that govern Wikipedia to train and monetize these new generative AI tools, inextricably linking the two in a relationship with competing and sometimes divergent interests. Governments and other internet governance stakeholders will inevitably play an important role as referees in this arena through policy and regulation. How can public policies and regulations facilitate an AI ecosystem where human rights are upheld and the public interest is advanced? How can upholding human rights in the digital commons lead to higher quality and more representative AI? This workshop will explore these themes and how online communities like those supported by Wikimedia Foundation are working to uphold human rights as it deploys AI to advance its free knowledge mission. Participants will discuss challenges that self-governing online communities are encountering in these regulatory debates and brainstorm a common set of principles to guide how they work to shape AI policy at the international and national levels.
Expected Outcomes
Participants will contribute to a common set of principles to guide how stakeholders with similar values can work to shape AI policy at the international and national levels. These principles can be carried forward into upcoming collaborations among civil society organizations and online communities to influence policy debates at the national and international levels.
Hybrid Format: The moderator will actively focus on including virtual participants in the conversation by monitoring their messages requests to speak. An EasyRetro Board to collect experiences, ideas, and proposals will be made available and displayed on a screen to in-person participants to facilitate substantive discussions and exchanges around virtual participants’ contributions. A roundtable format will encourage participants - both online and in-person - to contribute their own ideas and experiences throughout the conversation. A dedicated moderator will focus on facilitating fluidity in these conversations among online and in-person participants by monitoring the virtual chat and queue, reading questions or comments out loud for the event, and tying together similar threads of comments and questions.