The MIT AI Policy Forum (AIPF) is a global initiative at The MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, which was launched in 2018.  The Blackstone Group Chairman Stephen A. Schwarzman, donated $350 million of the $1.1 billion of funding committed to the school, which is the “single largest investment in computing and AI by an American academic institution.” (1)

What sets the AIPF apart from all other organizations dedicated to AI research and policy is its commitment to global collaboration moving from AI principles to AI practice:

“Today, artificial intelligence — and the computing systems that underlie it — are more than just matters of technology; they are matters of state and society, of governance and the public interest. The choices that technologists, policymakers, and communities make in the next few years will shape the relationship between AI technology and humans for decades to come.

For a few years now, there have been important and concerted efforts on understanding the impact of the broad deployment of AI as well as developing high-level principles for AI on social and ethical issues such as privacy, fairness, bias, transparency, or accountability. At this point, hundreds of events have taken place and dozens of documents on AI principles are already published. The process of understanding challenges created by AI, and then establishing the principles to follow has not been trivial, and may not be fully complete yet.

We are taking the next step by building on those broader principles to formulate concrete guidance for governments and companies to address the emerging issues.

Activities associated with this effort will be distinguished by their focus on tangible outcomes — their engagement with key government officials at the local, national, and international levels charged with designing those public policies, and their deep technical grounding in the latest advances in the science of AI. The measure of success will be whether these efforts have bridged the gap between these communities, translated principled agreement into actionable outcomes, and helped create the conditions for a deeper trust of humans in AI technology.  This is a challenging and complex process that requires all hands on deck.” (2)

In the last few years, the sheer amount of think tanks, government agencies, and academic institutions developing “high-level principles on the social and ethical issues” of AI started to feel like a perfect storm of analysis paralysis and scope creep.  It is this transition from principles to practice with a sense of urgency, intervention, and action which sets the AIPF apart from all the other resources we have explored in our research and analysis of the future of AI.

The leadership at the AIPF is committed to making a tactical impact.  They have set the strategic tone that certain core issues surrounding AI are understandable enough for action now – and we could not agree more.

Simply put:  It is time for a “Decide and Act” phase after the collective “Observe, Orient” analysis phase which has been applied to certain aspects of mission-critical social and ethical issues such as privacy, fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability.  To echo the AIPF:  “Now, it is time to take the next step.”

The AI Policy Forum Summit 2022

The AIPF’s annual capstone event for 2022, The AI Policy Forum Summit, was held yesterday.  Following is an informative description of the event from the organizers:

“There is, of course, no shortage of discussion about AI at different venues, but we believe that the current public discourse would greatly benefit from a deeper and more focused inquiry. To this end, the AI Policy Forum Summit will involve exploration and in-depth discussions of critical questions and issues in this space, as well as consideration of possible future developments and concrete guidance for governments and companies on implementing AI-related policies.

Hosted by the MIT AI Policy Forum — an initiative of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing to move the global conversation about the impact of AI from principles to practical policy implementation — leaders from government, business, and academia will convene for a day-long dialogue focusing on the global policy challenges surrounding the deployment of AI in key areas such as the development of:

• Truly trustworthy AI,
• The challenge of making AI work for consumers in finance, and
• Charting a viable path towards social media reform.” (3)

What Next?

With the $1.2 billion of funding at their back through the Schwarzman College of Computing, the AIPF can afford a very proactive, transparent, and open-source approach to their process  – and the content that emerges from their efforts. We respect that approach, as it allows OODA Loop to rapidly integrate the work of the AIPF into our research efforts, which are very much focused on cycling through the AI policy “signal to noise” ratio – to produce, as quickly as possible, impactful, actionable insights and recommendations for the OODA Loop readership.

Be on the lookout for further specific posts on the work going on at the AIPF and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, as well as the integration of some of their frameworks and recommendations into our AI research practice.

For those of you who are in a research function within your organization, the following are the public resources already available from the AIPF – including the videos from the summit event yesterday.

Further Resources

Panel videos from the AI Policy Forum Summit 2022:

Video:  AM Session 1

• CONVERSATION ON AI POLICY 1

  • Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General, OECD
  • Georgia Perakis, William F. Pounds Professor of Management, MIT; Associate Dean of Social & Ethical Responsibilities of Computing, MIT Schwarzman College of Computing; moderator

• CONVERSATION ON AI POLICY 2

  • Eric Schmidt, Co-founder, Schmidt Futures
  • Aleksander Madry, Professor of Computer Science, MIT; Co-chair, AI Policy Task Force on Finance; moderator

Video:  Afternoon Session 1

• PANEL 1: AI RULES BEYOND NATIONAL BORDERS

AI laws are proliferating around the world. But, given the global nature of AI technology, there is a pressing need for creating a framework that would help navigate the inevitable jurisdictional conflicts and international disputes arising in this context. What is the space for potential international AI agreements or treaties? How should we go about building consensus here?

• • Angela Kane, Senior Advisor, Nuclear Threat Initiative
  • Dr. Hiroaki Kitano, Senior Executive Vice President & CTO, Sony Group Corporation; Chair, Japan’s AI Strategy Implementation Council
  • Elham Tabassi, Chief of Staff of Information Technology Laboratory, NIST
  • Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Professor of Law, Oxford University; moderator

• PANEL 1: AI RULES BEYOND NATIONAL BORDERS

  AI laws are proliferating around the world. But, given the global nature of AI technology, there is a pressing need for creating a framework that would help navigate the inevitable jurisdictional conflicts and international disputes arising in this context. What is the space for potential international AI agreements or treaties? How should we go about building consensus here?

  • Angela Kane, Senior Advisor, Nuclear Threat Initiative
  • Dr. Hiroaki Kitano, Senior Executive Vice President & CTO, Sony Group Corporation; Chair, Japan’s AI Strategy Implementation Council
  • Elham Tabassi, Chief of Staff of Information Technology Laboratory, NIST
  • Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Professor of Law, Oxford University; moderator

• FIRESIDE CONVERSATION: DEPLOYING TRUSTWORTHY AI INTO THE WORLD

  As AI is poised to transform just about every aspect of our lives, we need to confront the emerging question: how should we think about the trustworthiness of AI deployment? How can and should the necessary technology developments interface with and be complemented by policy solutions?

  • Gary Gensler, Chair, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
  • Dan Huttenlocher, Dean, MIT Schwarzman College of Computing; Chair, AI Policy Forum; moderator
  • L. Rafael Reif, President, MIT
  • Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO, & Co-founder, Blackstone

• INTERLUDE: AI IN EDUCATION AND BUSINESS

  • L. Rafael Reif, President, MIT
  • Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO, & Co-founder, Blackstone