#AI#GenerativeAI#SocialSciences#Humanities: "With Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer releasing a sweeping “roadmap” for AI legislation today and major product announcements from OpenAI and Google, it’s been a big week for AI… and it’s only Wednesday.
But amid the ever-quickening pace of action, some observers wonder if government is looking at the tech industry with the right perspective. A report shared first with DFD from the nonprofit Data & Society argues that in order for powerful AI to integrate successfully with humanity, it must actually feature… the humanities.
Data & Society’s Serena Oduro and Tamara Kneese write that social scientists and other researchers should be directly involved in federally funded efforts to regulate and analyze AI. They say that given the unpredictable impact it might have on how people live, work and interact with institutions, AI development should involve non-STEM experts at every step.
“Especially with a general purpose technology, it is very hard to anticipate what exactly this technology will be used for,” said Kneese, a Data & Society senior researcher."
"AI is deeply intertwined with social systems, organizations, institutions, and culture. Sociotechnical approaches to AI system development and deployment are important to contend with the socially-embedded nature of AI to ensure that these systems are safe and effective and that their risks have been appropriately managed. People with expertise in sociology, anthropology, political science, law, economics, and psychology already exist in a wide range of technical and non-technical roles in AI companies but tend to be underused in AI system development efforts. Instead, they are often relegated to siloed roles in AI ethics or governance, compliance, or pre-deployment user interface testing where they have limited input to early design and prototyping, with limited authority to substantively modify product roadmaps."
"This policy brief explores the importance of integrating humanities and social science expertise into AI governance, and outlines some of the ways that doing so can help us to assess the performance and mitigate the harms of AI systems. It concludes with a set of recommendations for incorporating humanities and social science methods and expertise into government efforts, including in hiring and procurement processes." https://datasociety.net/library/ai-governance-needs-sociotechnical-expertise/
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