Truly thought-provoking and timely keynote talks and interdisciplinary discussions at the AlgoSoc Conference on The Future of Public Values in the Algorithmic Society hosted in Amsterdam last week (April 10-11). AlgoSoc conference program: https://conference.algosoc.org
Marietje Schaake’s powerful and urgent closing keynote on the future of democracy in times of autocratic and authoritarian control reminded us of the fragility of our democratic institutions. Marietje forcefully calls for nurturing resistance and building resilience to prevent catastrophic disruptions in the EU and globally.
Natali Helberger’s opening keynote and panel demanded us to consider the role of public values within digital and AI governance, that goes beyond tech-focused innovation to acknowledge the increasing power relations and societal concerns confronting us today.
In my talk I discussed the challenges of designing inclusive and value-aligned AI in the public sector, building on the interdisciplinary work of my former research group at Aalto University. I highlighted three aspects: 1) how we can examine discourses of shared and contested values embedded in the EU AI Act and Public AI Services, 2) engage human-AI collaboration to design trustworthy public AI services and embed public values in Knowledge Graphs, and 3) pilot AI Regulatory Sandboxes for high-risk AI innovations with stakeholders in civil society. We had a great discussion after our panel on evaluating AI, moderated by Shirley Kempeneer.
Other excellent panels covered crucial topics on EU’s digital agenda in an increasingly polarized world, future of news consumption, trust and algorithmic harms in AI, systemic risks of (gen)AI, and alternative computational infrastructures with Peter-Paul Verbeek, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Tamar Sharon, Talia Stroud, Maria Donde, Tarleton Gillespie, Claes de Vreese, Corinne Cath, PhD, Nicolas Lagos, Cynthia Liem, Dhavan Shah, José van Dijck, among so many thought-provoking speakers.
Some memorable moments for me were finding myself skipping part of my own panel session to attend Tom Divon’s brave talk on Weaponized AI and narratives of resistance examining Palestinian digital activism using GenAI during the Gaza war, through his excellent online ethnographic fieldwork. Roel Dobbe shared with me the book on “Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation” that he’s been reading lately in these times of crisis, learning from black feminist civil rights struggles in the U.S. in the 1960’s.
In these moments of global turmoil, attending two intense days of AlgoSoc’s inaugural international conference was truly captivating as we collectively work towards a future which strengthens human rights, democracy and inclusive governance of innovative AI and digital infrastructures, that aligns with our public values and serves the greater public good.
Nitin Sawhney 