People's Panel on AI Progress Update
One month ago, after listening to an episode of the Facilitating Public Deliberation podcast on Citizen’s Juries and the Oregon Citizens Initiative Review I put together and shared around a rough concept note to propose a deliberative citizen’s review of the upcoming AI Safety Summit and AI Fringe. The idea is simple: if the impacts of AI are going to be felt by everyone, then we need more than just industry, government or elite institutional voices to be shaping the debate.
While we can’t have direct access to the invite-only government-run AI Safety Summit, by looking to the materials that are are due to be shared (webcasts and communiques), and the broad range of sessions and speakers brought together at the AI Fringe that we can access, we have an opportunity for diverse members of the public to engage with a substantial breadth of the AI Safety and governance debate, and to develop considered positions on where future priorities for action should be.
Much like the Citizens Initiative Review adapts the citizens jury model for members of the public to interpret a complex ballot measure for their fellow voters, we wanted to explore how a Citizens’ Review of the AI Summit week could support a diverse group to provide insight and informed opinions that might feed new perspectives into the crowded (albeit unrepresentative) public debate on AI.
We’ve been delighted to receive support from a range of partner and funders to help us go from idea to project in record time. Mozilla Foundation have come on board as our anchor funder, and the Accelerate Programme for Scientific Discovery, the Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public, and the Ada Lovelace Institute have all contributed resources, allowing us to hire experienced deliberation practice Hopkins Van Mil as a delivery partner, to work with Sortition Foundation on participant selection, and to bring Anna Beckett on board as an independent evaluator. Milltown Partners have provided invaluable support both with access to the AI Fringe, and practical advice and guidance to help us leverage the AI Fringe as a source of evidence for the work, now titled ‘The People’s Panel on AI’.
Status update
With just over a week until the Summit, we’re making solid progress:
- We’ve convened a fantastic advisory group to oversee the project, helping us refine questions for the People’s Panel to consider, shaping communications plans, and advising on sessions and experts to engage with.
- We’ve recruited 11 of the 12 People’s Panel members, and hope to confirm the last member soon: working with Sortition Foundation to select a stratified random sample from over 490 expressions of interest (a great response rate for a short-notice invite to spend almost a week in London focussed on a new topic).
- We’ve put together an outline programme of sessions, including making connections with the Kavli Centre’s Hopes and Fears Lab, and reaching out to a range of experts to speak with the Panel.
- We’re been working on planning how to capture and communicate deliberations and panel findings: balancing creating space and freedom for Panel participants to explore new issues safely, whilst maximising opportunities for messages from the Panel to each decision shapers and makers.
Over the next week we’ll continue to prepare, with:
- An initial webinar for Panel members;
- Finalising logistics and meeting venues;
- Running a briefing for anyone who wants to know more about the Panel;
- The start of the independent evaluation process to support our project learning;
- Futher communications planning
If you want to get regular e-mail updates from the People’s Panel throughout the Summit week, you can sign up here.
Advisory group membership
The following people are members of the project advisory group:
- Octavia Reeve - Ada Lovelace Institute
- Anna Colom - Ada Lovelace Institute
- Aidan Peppin - Milltown Partners
- Lex Harrison - Milltown Partners
- Linda Griffin - Mozilla Foundation
- Jeni Tennison - Connected by Data
- Richard Milne - Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science and the Public
- Sophia Knight - Demos
- Jack Stilgoe - Responsible AI UK
- Martin Tisne - Luminate Strategic Initiatives