The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur: hosting our design lab on resources for community campaigns on data, attending the All Tech is Human Resposible Tech London mixer (where I got to catch up with both CbD Fellows, and community campaigns), pulling together a first draft of the Options Global Citizens Assembly on AI ahead of a conference next week, looking ahead to plans for sharing the paper in New York in September, running an online play-test of The Good Governance Game, joining the final meeting of the Data Governance Observatory researchers, and supporting the first meeting of the Public Voices in AI Peoples’ Advisory Panel. I was also supporting work to finish off an updated draft of a prospective Green Party AI policy, and out a few times on leafleting rounds for our local candidates just before the election. At the same time, the end of the school term and summer holidays approach, as does preparing our youngest child for starting school in September. Plus the house retrofit we’re undertaking is coming together (walls and insulated roof now in place… and starting to work on heat pumps, heat-recovery ventilation, floor insulation and cladding plans), which are testing whole different project and stakeholder management parts of my brain (and of course, bringing plenty of emotions too).
However, as I generally only get week-note shaped headspace on a train journey, I’m taking advantage of heading down to London for workshops tomorrow (and a catch up ahead of that with old Global Data Barometer colleagues) to try and unpack at least the Connected by Data bits of that blur.
All campaigns are data campaigns; all data campaigns are campaigns
It might seem trivial at first to say that “All campaigns are data campaigns” and “All data campaigns are campaigns”, but this key takeaway from our recent design captures a number of important points.
Firstly, campaigners reflected that, before the lab, they hadn’t always connected their ‘data objectives’ to their wider campaign objectives: seeing them as distinct (perhaps should we inadvertently incentivized in our call for projects?). However, parallels between thinking about ‘data cycles’ and ‘policy cycles’, and thinking about the need to show why a change to data practices matters, helped to highlight that for almost all modern social change objectives there is a data dimension. Just as the pursuit of many policy goals may come down to questions of ‘where will the money come from?’ or ‘how will it be funded?’, in a datified world they also come down to questions of ‘how will data guide delivery?’ and ‘who should have access to what data and when?’. However, unlike perhaps the fungibility of finance, which means campaigns can sometimes leave unanswered the detailed question of where funds come from: detailed questions of dataset design or sharing can be more consequential for whether a policy change delivers effectively and equitably or not. Working out which data-related levers could or should be pulled as part of systemic change campaigns is something we want to support campaigns of all forms to explore and feel empowered in acting on.
Secondly, by looking at a wide range of campaign strategies (we started one activity by taking of campaigns on any topic that had inspired us, from the work of AIDs activists, to hunger strikes, extinction rebellion campaigners, letter writers, creative protests and long-term efforts to influence policy through gaining committee places and power) we were able to highlight that campaigns about data don’t need to be limited to technocratic tactics. Just as any effective campaign might involve finding alliances, building a movement, and mobilizing action at the right moment, action on the data components of a campaign can put together a number of approaches to reach their goals.
Jeni has also reflected on the Community Campaigns on Data design lab in recent weeknotes, highlighting an additional important element that we might capture as ‘All campaigns have a community; All communities need care’. Jeni’s note focuses particularly on how campaigns based on creating counter data based on traumatic experiences can approach the process as one that is about “recognising strength and resilience, bringing resolution and joy, about building solidarity and positive action for their community”. The importance of recognizing the community element of all campaigns was, for me, underscored by the framing our facilitator, Dirk Slater, offered to the event, in taking about the importance of solidarity. Community rooted campaigns, which are ultimately about the redistribution of power, are stronger both when they build solidarity within, and solidarity across, different agendas for more inclusive, open and careful data.
In August I’m going to be finishing off a write-up from the design lab, and working on draft resources that try and distill some of the learning so far from our work supporting a small cohort of community campaigns, and I’m looking forward to seeing where the campaigns are all heading next!
Iterations on a game
After the second outing of the physical ‘Good Governance Game’ cards at the CAMRI conference a few weeks ago we brought back together some of our original design lab team (Vinay Narayan and Joe Massey) along with guest play-tested Lydia Rollinson, and Emily and Helena from the Connected by Data team, to try an online version of the game hosted on Screen top.
If you want to have a go at it (full instructions and some tweaks forthcoming!) then you can find a playable version here. Launch a game and explore with colleagues or friends!
The test confirmed we’ve got a good set of resources, but did point to a few places we need to improve the playable scenarios and design of cards and resources to both make the game version easier, and to strengthen use of the game as a workshop resource.
Unfortunately I learned this week that a funding bid for £10k to take the game to the next level (updated design, accompanying resource and full print-run) wasn’t successful, so over the next month we’ll be looking at the small tweaks we can make, and exploring funding options to go beyond the design lab pilot.
Public Voices in AI Peoples Advisory Panel
It was a joy on Tuesday evening to join the first meeting of the Public Voices in AI (PVAI) People’s Advisory Panel that we’ve convened on behalf of the PVAI partnership. Made up in part of past members of the People’s Panel on AI, and new recruits who have been involved in other AI-related public engagement processes, we spent the first meeting on introductions and exploring different use-cases of AI: with a view to informing an upcoming PVAI workpackage on filling data gaps with quantitative and qualitative research on public attitudes towards AI.
It’s been great to have Anna Beckett joining us as an associate to lead the facilitation of this work, and I’m looking forward to how the group develops.
We did struggle though to recruit a participant from Scotland – so if you know of a network or project that has worked with people in Scotland to learn about and engage on issues of AI, do let me know – as we’d love to add one more member to the panel.
Global Citizen Assembly on AI
The project that’s been taking up most of my headspace for the last few weeks is Options for a Global Citizens Assembly on AI. We’ve now carried out 15 interviews for the project, and on Thursday I’ll be presenting five outline design options at the “A permanent Global Citizens’ Assembly: Adding humankind’s voice to world politics” conference at Jesus College, Oxford.
I’m working out how best to share the draft for wider input, and how to also involve the many other people we would love to speak to for the project but have not been able to yet. It’s been a real privilege to collaborate with Claire Mellier and Rich Wilson from ISWE on the project: the ambition and experience they bring to thinking about deliberative governance of technology is invaluable.
I’ve also really valued all the work of the Global Citizens’ Assembly Network (GloCAN) and their in-depth technical papers on different aspects of citizens assembly design. One of the things I’ve been reflecting on in particular is how to use the research from this project both in making the case for global deliberation on AI, but also in supporting more localized action. As we write in the current introduction:
This paper has been prepared for the Coalition for a Global Citizens Assembly, which is working to establish a standing citizens assembly infrastructure alongside the United Nations. However, we hope that the options set out here are also of wider relevance.
Although we have focussed explicitly on the ‘big ideal’ of a global citizens assembly, many of the ideas and components explored in this report could also be applied at a firm, regional, national or even local level. Our hope is that this work also inspires anyone grappling with AI governance questions to think about how to bring diverse citizen voices more directly into shaping and making informed and deliberative decisions about our shared technological futures.
Over the last week I’ve also been the consequences of the UN anchoring of this big idea, as I try and plan how we might actually share the paper (and next-step actions) alongside the UN Summit of the Future in New York. I’ve been grateful for expert advice and experience from colleagues about how best to pitch events or activities during the busy UN High Level weeks. Watch this space for plans, and if you will be in New York around the end of September and interested in joining conversations about the future options for a global citizens assembly on AI – let me know!
Looking ahead
I’m away from Connected by Data work tomorrow, facilitating a workshop for the Open Ownership team, and then I’ll be fully focused on getting ready for the AI workshop at the Citizen Assembly conference in Oxford on Thursday. Next week I’ll be off-grid for a week of holiday (much needed! It wasn’t till writing up this weeknote I realised quite how busy the last month has been) – returning in early August to pick up community campaigns and GCA on AI work.
With Helena I’m also hoping to get some time to explore our field building strategy for the end of the year and beyond: looking at how we can continue to develop Connected by Data’s role as a bridging, connecting kind of organization.
Reading list
With putting together the Options for a Global Citizens Assembly on AI paper I’ve been filling up the Connected by Data Zotero group. A few selected items from there that I’ve found particularly useful this last week:
- Lerner, Josh. ‘From Waves to Ecosystems: The Next Stage of Democratic Innovation’. Research Scholar White Paper. SNF Ithaca, 2024. https://udspace.udel.edu/items/95bf3dbb-9990-483c-9040-197f42060df1.
- Machani, Aishwarya. ‘Designing Global Citizens Assemblies for Impact: Power Mapping of the United Nations System’. Technical Paper. Global Citizens’ Assembly Network, 2024. https://glocan.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Technical-Paper-3-2024-Machani.pdf.
- Malkin, Canning, and Nardine Alnemr. ‘Big Tech-Driven Deliberative Projects’. Technical Paper. Global Citizens’ Assembly Network, 2024. https://glocan.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Technical-Paper-5-2024-Malkin-and-Alnemr.pdf.
- Suresh, Harini, Emily Tseng, Meg Young, Mary Gray, Emma Pierson, and Karen Levy. ‘Participation in the Age of Foundation Models’. In The 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, 1609–21. Rio de Janeiro Brazil: ACM, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1145/3630106.3658992.