Periodic Reporting for period 1 - KT4D (Knowledge Technologies for Democracy)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-02-01 al 2024-01-31
AI and big data are fundamentally interwoven into our societies, culture and indeed into our expectations and conceptions of democratic governance and exchange. They can also, however, contribute to an environment for citizens that can seem distinctly anti-democratic. KT4D will harness the benefits of an understanding of these as knowledge technologies to foster more inclusive civic participation in democracy. To achieve this, we will develop and validate tools, guidelines and a Digital Democracy Lab demonstrator platform. These results will be validated across three user needs scenarios:
1) building capacity for citizens and citizen-facing Civil Society Organisations (CSOs);
2) creating regulatory tools and services for Policy and CSOs; and
3) improving awareness of how to design ethically and mindfully for democracy principles in academic and industrial software development.
Our work is underpinned by the understanding that to fully address the social and fundamental rights costs of AI and big data, we need more than just technological fixes, we need to address the underlying cultural influences and barriers. Most importantly, we understand the threats to democracy of AI and big data not only through the nature of what they do, but via the cultural disruptions they create with power dynamics they shift, their tendency toward opacity, and the speed at which they change. KT4D’s ambitious and disruptive results will drive transformation in how democracy and civic participation are facilitated in the face of rapidly changing knowledge technologies, enabling actors across society to capitalise on the many benefits these technologies can bring in terms of community empowerment, social integration, individual agency, and trust in both institutions and technological instruments, while confidently mitigating potential ethical, legal and cultural risks.
Objectives:
1) Objective 1: Publish clear definitions and guidelines for where and how democracy is threatened by AI and big data
2) Objective 2: Create an innovative system deployment of AI and big data (“Digital Democracy Lab”)
3) Objective 3: Develop assessment tools and frameworks to drive/enable more ethically informed software development practices
4) Objective 4: Foster more holistically informed regulatory processes with a governance framework and policy recommendations
5) Objective 5: Deliver a radically new conceptual framework and platform for education the digitally engaged citizen
1) building capacity for citizens and citizen-facing Civil Society Organisations (CSOs);
2) creating regulatory tools and services for Policy and CSOs; and
3) improving awareness of how to design ethically and mindfully for democracy principles in academic and industrial software development.
Our work is underpinned by the understanding that to fully address the social and fundamental rights costs of AI and big data, we need more than just technological fixes, we need to address the underlying cultural influences and barriers. Most importantly, we understand the threats to democracy of AI and big data not only through the nature of what they do, but via the cultural disruptions they create with power dynamics they shift, their tendency toward opacity, and the speed at which they change. KT4D’s ambitious and disruptive results will drive transformation in how democracy and civic participation are facilitated in the face of rapidly changing knowledge technologies, enabling actors across society to capitalise on the many benefits these technologies can bring in terms of community empowerment, social integration, individual agency, and trust in both institutions and technological instruments, while confidently mitigating potential ethical, legal and cultural risks.
Objectives:
1) Objective 1: Publish clear definitions and guidelines for where and how democracy is threatened by AI and big data
2) Objective 2: Create an innovative system deployment of AI and big data (“Digital Democracy Lab”)
3) Objective 3: Develop assessment tools and frameworks to drive/enable more ethically informed software development practices
4) Objective 4: Foster more holistically informed regulatory processes with a governance framework and policy recommendations
5) Objective 5: Deliver a radically new conceptual framework and platform for education the digitally engaged citizen
- First iteration of Use Cases - Collaborative process between partners and across work packages to create and implement engagement strategies for all four local Use Cases, fostering collaboration and inclusivity
- Effective project branding established - Completed a complete branding package for KT4D which has been consistently applied by all partners
- First version of the Social Risk Toolkit is complete and includes the development of the following modules:
A) Ethical Intuitions and Sense of Free Will
B) Informed, Contextual Trust and Awareness of Technological Affordances
C) Historical Precedents: Social Organisation and Knowledge Technologies
D) Use of Personal Data and User Profiling
E) Control of Individual Freedoms of Speech and Action
F) Closing the Gap between Global Technologies and Local Democracies
G) Contextual Assessment and Gap Analysis of Participatory AI
H) State of the art on Participatory Machine Learning (ML) and Algorithmic Accountability
The first 12 months of the project were devoted to defining the theoretical framework guiding the first three modules of the KT4D Social Toolkit. This first phase of knowledge gathering will serve as the basis for further work to go beyond the state of the art, and to develop an original methodology aimed at establishing concrete, evidence-based recommendations for developing AI-based systems that are more respectful of individuals.
In addition, a literature review has been created that explores the concept of critical digital literacy, outlining a list of keywords of related topics such as media literacy, data literacy, digital literacy, etc., but also disinformation, polarisation and the use of AI to influence opinions.
Working design principles for the Digital Democracy Lab have also been developed focussing on three fundamental criteria:
1) Overcoming opacity of the technology
2) Developing a democracy-in-the loop approach for the technology
3) Creating an added value for using AI in democratic exchange
- Effective project branding established - Completed a complete branding package for KT4D which has been consistently applied by all partners
- First version of the Social Risk Toolkit is complete and includes the development of the following modules:
A) Ethical Intuitions and Sense of Free Will
B) Informed, Contextual Trust and Awareness of Technological Affordances
C) Historical Precedents: Social Organisation and Knowledge Technologies
D) Use of Personal Data and User Profiling
E) Control of Individual Freedoms of Speech and Action
F) Closing the Gap between Global Technologies and Local Democracies
G) Contextual Assessment and Gap Analysis of Participatory AI
H) State of the art on Participatory Machine Learning (ML) and Algorithmic Accountability
The first 12 months of the project were devoted to defining the theoretical framework guiding the first three modules of the KT4D Social Toolkit. This first phase of knowledge gathering will serve as the basis for further work to go beyond the state of the art, and to develop an original methodology aimed at establishing concrete, evidence-based recommendations for developing AI-based systems that are more respectful of individuals.
In addition, a literature review has been created that explores the concept of critical digital literacy, outlining a list of keywords of related topics such as media literacy, data literacy, digital literacy, etc., but also disinformation, polarisation and the use of AI to influence opinions.
Working design principles for the Digital Democracy Lab have also been developed focussing on three fundamental criteria:
1) Overcoming opacity of the technology
2) Developing a democracy-in-the loop approach for the technology
3) Creating an added value for using AI in democratic exchange
The KT4D project has defined its pathway to impact as flowing from two key outcome-focussed trajectories:
● Outcome/Impact Pathway 1: ‘Protect fundamental rights and European values from possible threats stemming from unregulated use of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data applications’;
At M12 the KT4D project is at an early stage in relation to its ultimate and eventual socio-cultural, technological and policy impact and steady work has been underway in relation to KT4D’s two primary outcomes. The first release of the first six modules of the Social Risk Toolkit (KER 1) has been achieved in this reporting period, establishing a consolidated, user-friendly baseline from which to re-imagine approaches to the use and regulation of big data and AI in democracy-adjacent contexts. This background and targeted empirical and advanced research will ultimately inform the Governance framework, policy roadmap and recommendations produced by the project. The Social Risk Toolkit has also progressed this outcome, in particular by informing the curriculum development and learning materials development underway in WP 6 (KER 4). These results will contribute directly to the desired impact by enabling this work to draw on a clearly defined understanding of threats, proposing and building mechanisms by which citizens (and organisations that represent and provide technology upskilling opportunities to them) can recognise and resist them.
● Outcome/Impact Pathway 2: ‘Innovative uses of AI and big data to enhance citizen engagement and democracy.’
In KT4D's first year, a number of key issues for the adoption of useful frameworks have been uncovered in relation to Pathway 2: in particular, the fragmentation of the concept of literacies is proving an important point to clarify, as critical digital literacy and digital literacy often become conflated not only with each other but with terms such as information or media literacy. Furthermore, the idea that democratic processes respond to certain cultural factors is being progressed, in particular as pertains to the creation of social capital and the relational aspects of identity formation. A contextual assessment and gap analysis of participatory AI development approaches has been created and this has begun to inform the Digital Democracy Lab System (KER 5 and 6), as well as the Social Computing Compass (KER 3).
● Outcome/Impact Pathway 1: ‘Protect fundamental rights and European values from possible threats stemming from unregulated use of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data applications’;
At M12 the KT4D project is at an early stage in relation to its ultimate and eventual socio-cultural, technological and policy impact and steady work has been underway in relation to KT4D’s two primary outcomes. The first release of the first six modules of the Social Risk Toolkit (KER 1) has been achieved in this reporting period, establishing a consolidated, user-friendly baseline from which to re-imagine approaches to the use and regulation of big data and AI in democracy-adjacent contexts. This background and targeted empirical and advanced research will ultimately inform the Governance framework, policy roadmap and recommendations produced by the project. The Social Risk Toolkit has also progressed this outcome, in particular by informing the curriculum development and learning materials development underway in WP 6 (KER 4). These results will contribute directly to the desired impact by enabling this work to draw on a clearly defined understanding of threats, proposing and building mechanisms by which citizens (and organisations that represent and provide technology upskilling opportunities to them) can recognise and resist them.
● Outcome/Impact Pathway 2: ‘Innovative uses of AI and big data to enhance citizen engagement and democracy.’
In KT4D's first year, a number of key issues for the adoption of useful frameworks have been uncovered in relation to Pathway 2: in particular, the fragmentation of the concept of literacies is proving an important point to clarify, as critical digital literacy and digital literacy often become conflated not only with each other but with terms such as information or media literacy. Furthermore, the idea that democratic processes respond to certain cultural factors is being progressed, in particular as pertains to the creation of social capital and the relational aspects of identity formation. A contextual assessment and gap analysis of participatory AI development approaches has been created and this has begun to inform the Digital Democracy Lab System (KER 5 and 6), as well as the Social Computing Compass (KER 3).