The Joint Secretariat of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance invited feedback on the first dialogue in Geneva, and included a request for recommendations on the organisation of future dialogues. Drawing on consultation with Citizens’ Track team members who were in Geneva, and input on our community call, we submitted the following text.
We encourage Citizens Track partners to draw on this in their own feedback if appropriate.
To support the Global Dialogue’s commitment to inclusive participation we recommend collaboration with the Citizens’ Track on AI (www.citizens-track.org) in order to create direct opportunities for the voices of diverse affected communities to be represented, including through:
Inviting public input and sharing framing questions for public dialogue. The Chairs Report should include priority questions for public deliberation over the period between dialogues, helping to catalyse community assemblies across the world that can meet, learn about AI governance, and deliberate in response to these key questions. Inviting publics to deliberate on AI and share their inputs to the Global Dialogue to in this way will strengthen the legitimacy of the process, create a way to hear diverse perspectives, including from indigenous and marginalised communities, and engage wider populations in action and accountability mechanisms flowing from the Global Dialogue.
Provide agenda space for synthesis of public perspectives on AI alongside the Independent International Scientific Panel report. The outputs of public participation complement scientific evidence by offering agile and leading indicators of issues arising around the world: and providing insight into how these are affecting different communities. Explicitly including agenda space for inputs from public participation will demonstrate to publics engaging in community assemblies that their concerns are being heard at the highest levels and offer a mechanism to feed into evidence-informed discussions.
Providing a registration mechanism for Citizens’ Track participants, allowing a small number of representatives of community assemblies, who may not be associated with a formal CSO, to attend, observe and contribute to the Global Dialogue.
Providing effective remote participation options, in recognition of the particular challenges for many community participants in obtaining Visas and funding to travel to New York.