People’s Panel on AI Bulletin 7 - Perspectives from the Fringe, Learning from the Panel, TechUK Digital Ethics Summit and more

This is a follow-up bulletin from the People’s Panel on AI, sharing updates and insights from the last three months, featuring our policy brief on learning from the panel, video of panel members Janet and Sharif speaking at the TechUK Digital Ethics Summit, and more insights from the panel in the combined Perspectives from the AI Fringe report.

You can find earlier bulletins and more content from the People’s Panel here.

Briefing: Involving the public in AI policymaking - Experiences from the People’s Panel on AI

Stop press: Register here for our upcoming Connected Conversation exploring learning from the People’s Panel on 7th March 2pm on Zoom. Part of the AI UK Fringe.

Drawing on the full panel report and independent evaluation (both available on the panel website), we’ve produced an accessible briefing that outlines the process of putting together a deliberative review of the AI Fringe and AI Safety Summit, and that calls for:

• Organisers of future summits, conferences or AI governance discussions to include a parallel deliberative review that enables members of the public from affected communities to engage and input;
• Sponsors of events to allocate funding for public engagement, and to work with independent facilitators to deliver this;
• Decision-makers working on AI topics to embed participatory deliberative reviews as a key input to their decision making.

Read the brief here, and if you are interested in exploring how you might run or support a future deliberative review, get in touch.

Perspectives from the AI Fringe

What did industry, academia and civil society take-away from the AI Fringe? And how do the perspectives of these groups connect with the messages from the People’s Panel on AI? Yesterday, the Perspectives from the AI Fringe report was published, containing chapters from each of these groups.

You can find the full Perspectives from the AI Fringe report here, or turn directly to page 23 to find quotes and analysis from the People’s Panel.

People’s voice at the Tech UK Digital Ethics Summit

Back in December, Janet and Sharif from the People’s Panel on AI opened Tech UK’s Digital Ethics Summit yesterday, presenting the recommendations of the Panel and talking with Tech UK’s Sue Daley about their experience of public involvement. Watch the session recording here on YouTube.

For the TechUK conference, we put together a new two-page brief including the Panel recommendations, a primer on the value and practice of deliberative engagement, and a visual representation of the case for ongoing public engagement that can inform the future development and governance of AI.

You can download the two-page brief here, or if you would like hard copies, drop me a line.

Focus on education

In January, a number of members of the panel drew upon their experiences at the AI Fringe to join a number of conversations about AI in education. Janet spoke at Truro High School’s regional AI in Education conference, and members of the panel joined Connected by Data’s EdTech Design Lab to explore how affected communities can have a powerful voice in shaping the adoption of data-driven technology in schools.

Coming up: events

• 7th March (Online): Join our online workshop as part of the AI UK Fringe on at 2pm \

• **19th March (London): **Hear from People’s Panel member Margaret, along with Connected by Data’s Helena Hollis at the Turing Institute’s AI UK conference as part of a panel discussion on participatory methods.

Sustaining engagement

Could you:

• Invite People’s Panel members to contribute to a future discussion or event?
• Sponsor the ongoing work of the People’s Panel to champion public voice in local communities and national debates?
• Commission a deliberative review that can recruit new people to engage with AI issues, and go-on to build the People’s Panel community?

Members of the People’s Panel have continued to meet monthly on Zoom, sharing updates, discussing how far recent AI developments are being felt (or not) at the local level across England, and thinking about how to build on their experience in future.

This ongoing engagement wasn’t something we had planned for when creating the Panel, but we were struck by the passion of the group to speak up for public voice in AI governance, and so have committed time to support follow-up discussions until the end of March. Yesterday we explored a number of future pathways for the panel, from seeking further opportunities for founding members to share their perspectives, to finding ways to widen involvement through catalysing future dialogues.

With so many AI debates and decisions still taking place with minimal public voice, small groups of citizens can make a big impact.

Please do get in touch if you might be interested in supporting the Panel’s ongoing work.

In other news

Connected by Data works on a range of projects to support communities to have a powerful voice in the governance of data and AI.

• From April to September we’ll be running an action-learning set of Community Campaigns on Data, offering regular support, a £3k stipend, and learning opportunities for grassroots groups working to transform how data is collected, used or governed. Expressions of interest open until 11th March. \

• The Data Policy Digest provides a regular round-up of data and AI related policy news, and information on opportunities for civil society organisations to work together on advocacy and campaigning.

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