WPX: Reflexivity, Collaboration and Knowledge-sharing on Responsible AI

Hybrid AI is an emerging field. Similarly, the process of responsible AI algorithmic design is an underdeveloped field of AI, AI ethics, and AI governance. WPX will study the DesCartes project and the development of hybrid AI technologies to learn how this field is developing, how successful collaborations emerge, and what kinds of practices can determine successful implementation. The impact of WPX operationalises the findings from WP6 and WP7 and studies the integration and co-development processes of DesCartes. 

Main Outcomes: WPX will provide a first and novel study on how to successfully develop and implement large-scale responsible critical hybrid AI infrastructure. With the idea of providing a benchmark for the successful deployment of hybrid AI, we aim to publish our findings at INSEAD, Harvard Business Review, and other relevant academic journals.

WPX will document the data, artefacts, communications, and successes and failures of the DesCartes project. It will facilitate and study the co-development process, including team meetings, work practices, and project collaborations. This allows WPX to highlight and analyse the conditions and decisions that lead to responsible hybrid AI solutions. To date, a study of this scale and scope has yet to be undertaken. In this manner, WPX will set a global point of reference, and inform the ways that critical AI infrastructure projects can be carried out.

Topic 1. Studying scientists in action. An ongoing ethnographic and data-driven analysis of the Descartes project to provide a case study for the transparent and responsible development of hybrid AI. Through various ethnographic and participant observation approaches, WPX will deliver critical insight on how decisions are made and by whom, how teams work, how individuals collaborate across various disciplines, how individuals perceive their roles, how work is influenced by wider social factors, and how each WP relates to the project as a whole.

Topic 2. Building consensus around technologies. The organization and facilitation of recurring workshops and meetings across the DesCartes WPs (work packages). These mechanisms will function to cultivate self-reflection on the overall direction of the DesCartes project, to generate feedback on the designs and the co-design process, to spark deliberations about technology and its development, and to shape a consensus on issues of public concern and debate. The notion of a “consensus conference” is to bring stakeholders—such as the general public of Singapore, various government agencies, and industries—into dialogue and include them in the decision-making process about technologies and their consequences.

This research is supported by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme.

CREATE is an international collaboratory housing research centres set up by top universities. At CREATE, researchers from diverse disciplines and backgrounds work closely together to perform cutting-edge research in strategic areas of interest, for translation into practical applications leading to positive economic and societal outcomes for Singapore. The interdisciplinary research centres at CREATE focus on four areas of interdisciplinary thematic areas of research, namely human systems, energy systems, environmental systems and urban systems. More information on the CREATE programme can be obtained from www.create.edu.sg.

Visit the CNRS website here.