Language: English (mozilla)
Many issues related to digital privacy, the lack of human agency, corporate accountability, and transparency of AI-enabled technology are rooted in decisions surrounding data collection, annotation, ownership, processing, and erasure practices. Prominent scholars have proposed that AI developers could use licenses as a way of preventing unintended and irresponsible use of their systems. Furthermore, indigenous communities have proposed bottom up data sovereignty licenses that aim to protect their identity and cultural heritage.
We set out to engage in a discussion on the role of contracts and licence agreements in AI, centered on the question of: how do we enable adequate consent that ensures a trustworthy relationship between all parties, while enabling contestability of algorithmic outcomes?
It’s long been said that “I agree to the Terms-of-Service” is the biggest lie on the Internet. The legal industry, as well, has struggled to author contracts that allow for more granular levels of understanding and sufficient flexibility to accommodate for the unique circumstances of individuals. To remedy that, scholars have proposed computational contracts, built through a contract definition language that is sufficiently expressive to allow for improved human agency.
In this session, we hope to demonstrate the relationships among these active areas of research and engage participants in a discussion on what new tools and interfaces (social, legal, technological, and other) could enable a more trustworthy relationship between the public and consumer tech companies.
The goal for this session would be to explore the types of computational contracts and licenses that could be created to protect human agency over our digital identity and privacy, ensure corporate accountability, and contribute to increased trust between the public and AI-enabled consumer products and services. Our hope is for the discussion to inspire interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations in the intersection of digital identity and privacy, computational law, and trustworthy AI. Together with interested session participants, we will write a public blog post documenting the discussion findings and inspiring a collective vision for systemic change.
Why did you choose that space? How does your session align with the space description?:As session organizers, we bridge two worlds - computational law and trustworthy AI. We think that our session is in perfect alignment with the Digital ID and Privacy Space track at MozFest because the session will aim to (1) inform participants about the work on the intersection of legal frameworks and AI impact assessments, and (2) engage participants in an interactive discussion on what leverage points exist in protecting our digital identity. In investigating the complexities of consent and contestability in the context of digital identity, we hope to inspire new perspectives on what interfaces and tools could provide more transparency and accountability in the interactions between people and AI-enabled consumer tech and services.
How will you deal with varying numbers of participants in your session? What if 30 participants attend? What if there are 3?:The proposed session is the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration which has been possible through our continuous efforts to alleviate a number of translational and other challenges between academic disciplines, the experiences of diverse communities, industry practitioners, and others. Our goal is for this session to create an open dialogue where everyone is included. Depending on the number of participants we would facilitate one or multiple discussions in breakout groups. We will be using accessible and flexible tools to guide the discussions such that everyone has the chance to engage in the open conversation.
What happens after MozFest? We're hoping that many efforts and discussions will continue after MozFest. Share any ideas you already have for how to continue the work from your session.:We will have a concrete call to action for participants to join us in an open community of practice in order to further investigate the role of licenses, computational contracts, service agreements, or other disclosures in contributing to improved human agency and corporate accountability, specifically with respect to protecting our digital identity and privacy.
What language would you like to host your session in?:English