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Welcoming The AI Shared Prosperity Initiative Steering Committee

Diverse Perspectives To Guide Multidisciplinary Debate For a Research Agenda Focused on AI Industry’s Role In Co-creating a Globally Inclusive Economic Future

Announced earlier this summer, the AI and Shared Prosperity Initiative (AI SPI) is a multi-year effort to advance public knowledge on what concrete frameworks companies developing and deploying AI should adopt to co-create a global economic future that is inclusive by design. Today, we are pleased to progress in this Initiative’s mission with the launch of the AI and Shared Prosperity Initiative Steering Committee.

The AI SPI Steering Committee is tasked with the vital role of guiding the development of the AI and Shared Prosperity Research Agenda. The Research Agenda will pose nuanced and refined questions for further study in a new subfield within responsible AI, centered on equipping the AI industry with practical frameworks for responsibility handling the (re)distributive power of AI.

To date, the “future of work” debate and scholarship have primarily focused on the need for the society and workers to prepare for and adjust to the changes in the labor market brought about by AI advancement, which is deemed to leave many people behind. The AI SPI focuses instead on the role and responsibility of the AI industry to steer the development of AI in a way that will make the economic transition induced by AI advancement less burdensome and costly on the part of workers and society, enabling an inclusive economic future. The AI SPI Research Agenda will raise foundational questions that remain unanswered by existing responsible AI research efforts. Foundational questions include: What concrete objectives can an AI industry actor striving to advance shared prosperity set for itself? How can this AI industry actor measure progress towards that objective? And what practical steps will help achieve progress towards this objective?

The AI SPI Steering Committee includes 23 distinguished experts and visionary thinkers from many disciplines and backgrounds: labor advocates and civil society leaders, ethicists,  entrepreneurs, leading social scientists, and technologists. This team of experts will explore a wide breadth of issues and questions in the formulation of the AI and Shared Prosperity Research Agenda. We anticipate and encourage productive disagreement within the Steering Committee in the shared pursuit of the AI Industry’s responsibility in a global economic inclusive future. Over the coming months, we look forward to sharing excerpts from the Committee deliberations: insights, provocations, and discussion points for the public at large to participate.

The Al and Shared Prosperity Initiative Steering Committee
Daron Acemoglu 
Institute Professor of Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jody Medich
Principal Design Researcher, Office of the CTO
Microsoft
Dunstan Allison-Hope
Vice President
Business for Social Responsibility
Sabelo Mhlambi
Founder
Bantucracy
Michael Chui
Partner
McKinsey Global Institute
Shakir Mohamed
Senior Staff Scientist
DeepMind
Jack Clark
Policy Director
OpenAl
Paloma Muñoz Quick
Advisor
UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights
and OHCHR B-Tech
Andrea Dehlendorf
Co-Executive Director
United for Respect
Grace Mutung’u
Research Fellow
Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology at Strathmore University
Arturo Franco
Vice President, Insight
Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth
Lama Nachman
Intel Fellow & Director of Anticipatory Computing Lab
Intel
Jessica Fulton
Vice President
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
Reema Nanavati
Executive Director
Self Employed Women’s Association
Ryan Gerety
Senior Advisor
United for Respect
Aiha Nguyen
Program Director, Labor Futures Initiative
Data & Society Research Institute
Stacey MacGrath Gifford
Research Staff Member
Future of Climate, Governance of Science and Technology
IBM Research
Rahul Panicker
Chief Research and Innovation Officer
Wadhwani Institute for AI
Deborah Greenfield
Former Deputy Director-General for Policy
International Labour Organization
Damon Silvers
Policy Director and Special Counsel
AFL-CIO
Anton Korinek
Associate Professor of Economics
University of Virginia/Future of Humanity Institute
Sarah Treuhaft
Vice President of Research
PolicyLink
Andrew Kortina
Co-founder
Venmo.com and Fin.com

A core aspect of our mission at the Partnership on AI is the inclusion of diverse voices across global sectors, disciplines, and demographics so developments in AI advance positive outcomes for people and society. With the AI SPI Steering Committee, we’re proud to bring this aspect of our mission to life with the diverse perspectives of the AI SPI Steering Committee.

The AI SPI Research Agenda will be released for public comments in 2021. We hope that many organizations and individual researchers will be attracted to take up questions raised by the Steering Committee in the AI SPI Research Agenda. We will seek to gain input on the early prototypes and drafts of this agenda from workers employed in automation-prone industries around the world, policymakers, business practice change-makers from other fields, and the general public.

To learn more and sign up for the AI SPI’s progress updates, visit the project webpage: https://www.partnershiponai.org/shared-prosperity-initiative/