Peoples Panel for Artificial Intelligence

Latham, Annabel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8410-7950 and Crockett, Keeley ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1941-6201 (2023) Peoples Panel for Artificial Intelligence. Other. Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

Citizen trust in Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications and data driven technologies is at the forefront of ethical guidelines, principles, and future AI legalisation. The creation of successful products and services which benefit people and society requires many diverse citizen voices which are often absent from R&D processes and wider public discourse. Citizens need to have the opportunity and confidence to engage with researchers and innovators through a shared language, understanding and relationship between data and AI. Through funding obtained from the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence (AI), through its Public Engagement Grant award 2022 we established a Greater Manchester (GM) People’s Panel for AI (PPfAI) to empower marginalised communities to contribute to AI research and development. We reached out to two communities: The Tatton in Salford and Inspire in Levenshulme and neither community had previously engaged with the research and development sector previously. A key motivation for this project was to build people’s confidence to ask questions about how their data and AI is being used by businesses through an increased understanding of what AI is and how it is used, Starting in July 2022, we ran 3 community interactive roadshows to explore how AI impacted people’s everyday lives, debating technology, exploring a range of applications, and obtaining very diverse opinions. 9 citizens were recruited to the People’s Panel and completed two days of training about key aspects of data, AI and ethics, including learning the Open Data Institutes Consequence Scanning toolkit. Four live People’s Panel sessions were held where tech businesses and researchers pitched their ideas and were subject to intensive questioning by panel members. To sustain the panel, we have developed with panel members, businesses and the Greater Manchester Equality Alliance (GM=EqAl) (which works with marginalised communities to influence regional policy making) to develop a Peoples Panel for AI Terms of Reference which is freely available. After taking part, panel members reported an increase in confidence in being able to question businesses and researchers. Businesses heard a diverse stakeholder voice on the ethical impacts of their products / services which have and are leading to many changes from product design considerations to ethical practices.