OECD Digital Economy Paper: “As artificial intelligence (AI) integrates all sectors at a rapid pace, different AI systems bring different benefits and risks. In comparing virtual assistants, self-driving vehicles and video recommendations for children, it is easy to see that the benefits and risks of each are very different. Their specificities will require different approaches to policy making and governance. To help policy makers, regulators, legislators and others characterise AI systems deployed in specific contexts, the OECD has developed a user-friendly tool to evaluate AI systems from a policy perspective. It can be applied to the widest range of AI systems across the following dimensions: People & Planet; Economic Context; Data & Input; AI model; and Task & Output. Each of the framework’s dimensions has a subset of properties and attributes to define and assess policy implications and to guide an innovative and trustworthy approach to AI as outlined in the OECD AI Principles….(More)”.
Data Dissemination in the Digital Age
Report by PARIS21 and Open Data Watch: “…a first account of the state of data portals in national statistical offices.
Data portals form a critical link between producers and users of data; and they facilitate the use of data in evidence-based decision making. National statistical offices, supported by their international partners, have embraced data portals as a way to disseminate official data.
However, data portals need to be designed and implemented in a sustainable manner to be beneficial to end users. Currently, there is a lack of common principles and guidelines as to how these data portals should be set up and managed to guide institutions.
This report proposes a holistic method to evaluate data portals and proposes recommendations to improve their use and function…(More)”.
Advancing Digital Agency: The Power of Data Intermediaries
World Economic Forum Report: “With the integration of screenless technology into everyday life, the data ecosystem is growing increasingly complicated. New ambient data collection methods bring many benefits, but they also have the potential to amplify mistrust between people and technology.
In this Insight Report, the World Economic Forum’s Taskforce on Data Intermediaries explores the potential to outsource human decision points to an agent acting on an individual’s behalf, in the form of a data intermediary.
The opportunities and risks of such a new approach are explored, representing one of many new policy anchors through and around which individuals may navigate new data ecosystem models. Levers of action for both the public and private sectors are suggested to ensure a future-proof digital policy environment that allows for the seamless and trusted movement of data between people and the technology that serves them…(More)”.
Global Cooperation on Digital Governance and the Geoeconomics of New Technologies in a Multi-polar World
A special collection of papers by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and King’s College London (KCL) resulting from: “… a virtual conference as part of KCL’s Project for Peaceful Competition. It brought together an intellectually and geographically diverse group of experts to discuss the geoeconomics of new digital technologies and the prospects for governance of the technologies in a multi-polar world. The papers prepared for discussion at the conference are collected in this series. An introduction summarizes (in heavily abbreviated form) the principal analytical conclusions emerging from the conference, together with the main policy recommendations put forward by participants….(More)”.
Data saves lives: reshaping health and social care with data
UK Department of Health and Social Care: “In England and in every community around the world, digital developments have been essential to the pandemic response. People have accessed advice and care remotely in unprecedented numbers, helping keep them and their families safe. World class genomics helped identify and track new variants. Daily analysis allowed problems to be understood rapidly, and resources redeployed. Staff worked remotely. And the COVID-19 vaccination service was mobilised in record time.
Such an efficient and effective response was only possible because of investment in digital systems, innovation and skills over the last few years, and the partnerships forged between digital, clinical and operational colleagues.
The opportunity now is for the health and care sector to apply such approaches with increased urgency and consistency to both our long-term challenges and to the immediate tasks of rebuilding from the pandemic. We have a responsibility to do both.
The Digital Transformation Plan sets out the overarching vision for how we will digitise, connect and transform the health and care sector. This data strategy explains in more detail the role that data will play in that transformation and how it can inspire effective collaboration across the NHS, adult social care, and public health, help us care for people in the best possible way, and ensuring that our citizens have the best experience possible when using the system.
There are 3 key priorities which underpin this strategy:
- first to build understanding on how data is used and the potential for data-driven innovation, improving transparency so the public has control over how we are using their data
- second to make appropriate data sharing the norm and not the exception across health, adult social care and public health, to provide the best care possible to the citizens we serve, and to support staff throughout the health and care system
- third to build the right foundations – technical, legal, regulatory – to make that possible…(More)”.
A Taxonomy for AI / Data for Good
Paper by Jake Porway: “There is huge potential for AI and data science to play a productive role in advancing social impact. However, the field of “AI for good” and “data for good” is not only overshadowed by the public conversations about the risks rampant data misuse can pose to civil society, it is also a fractured and disconnected space without a single shared vision. One of the biggest issues preventing AI for Good from becoming an established field is a lack of clarity. “Data” and “AI” are treated like they’re well-defined terms, but they are stand-ins for a huge set of different – and sometimes competing – outcomes, outputs, and activities. The terms “AI for Good” and “Data for Good” is as unhelpful as saying “Wood for Good”. We would laugh at a term as vague as “Wood for Good”, which would lump together activities as different as building houses to burning wood in cook stoves to making paper, combining architecture with carpentry, forestry with fuel. However, we are content to say “AI for Good”, and its related phrases “we need to use our data better” or “we need to be data-driven”, when data is arguably even more general than something like wood.
One way to cut through this fog is to be far more clear about what a given AI-for-good initiative seeks to achieve, and by what means. To that end, we’ve created a taxonomy, a family tree of AI-and-Data-for-Good initiatives, that groups initiatives based on their goals and strategies. This taxonomy came about as a result of studying and classifying over 600 initiatives labeled as “AI for good” or “data for good” publicly (you can read more about the methodology here). At the highest level, the taxonomy identifies six major branches of AI and data for good activities, which will help field builders, funders, and nonprofits better understand the distinctions in this space. Within each branch, you’ll see sub-branches that further subdivide initiatives, which we hope will aid collaboration for the groups within those branches and help funders make more strategic funding decisions.
Below you’ll find a landscape map of a subset of initiatives in the AI and Data for Good space, categorized into those six main branches we observed. Before we dive into describing each branch, here are a few caveats on how to interpret this work:
- We are focused on initiatives that are enabling and advancing the field of Data for Good, not trying to catalog every data science project every nonprofit or company is doing (though that would be an interesting landscape to see as well). These initiatives are those focused on advancing the field of using data and AI for good.
- We chose to categorize initiatives, not organizations. It would be impossible to classify “Microsoft”, when their activities span funding through Microsoft Philanthropies, creating open satellite imagery through Microsoft AI for Earth, providing infrastructure through nonprofit licenses of Microsoft Azure, and so on. Therefore you may see organizations appear multiple times across the landscape.
- The current database of organizations is minuscule – it is nowhere near exhaustive. We have only mapped enough initiatives to show the results for feedback, but we encourage you to recommend other initiatives you know of but don’t see here with this form.
- While we are incredibly privileged to have advisors contributing to this project from countries like Brazil, Nigeria, and Nepal, the initiative still skew Western…(More)”.
Guide to Digital Participation Platforms
Guide by People Powered: “In the past decade, it has become increasingly common to engage citizens in various aspects of government via online platforms. In fact, in the release of their most recent data, the publishers of the PB Atlas reported an “accelerating trend toward the digitalization of participatory budgeting,” spurred on by the COVID pandemic.
To satisfy this demand, several comprehensive digital participation platforms have emerged. They help governments, civil society groups, and other institutions engage residents in all types and stages of participatory processes, ranging from planning and budgeting to citizens’ assemblies and the drafting of legislation.
While we often think of such technological platforms in the context of advanced democracies, they have been used to facilitate participatory decision-making in a wide variety of contexts.
At their best, platforms enable decision-makers or communities to manage:
- Community and stakeholder engagement.
- Collective deliberation and decision-making.
- Public communication.
- Project tracking and monitoring.
- Internal coordination.
If you are looking to engage your community through a digital platform, this guide is for you. It explains what they are and shows you how to choose, set up, and run them. We’ve reviewed hundreds of participatory democracy tools and platforms, and this guide shares a limited subset for your consideration (see our Digital Participation Platforms Matrix)…(More)”.
OECD Report on Public Communication: The Global Context and the Way Forward
OECD Report: “…The first OECD Report on Public Communication: The Global Context and the Way Forward examines the public communication structures, mandates and practices of centres of governments and ministries of health from 46 countries, based on the 2020 Understanding Public Communication surveys. It analyses how this important government function contributes to better policies and services, greater citizen trust, and, ultimately, stronger democracies in an increasingly complex information environment. It looks at the role public communication can play in responding to the challenges posed by the spread of mis- and disinformation and in building more resilient media and information ecosystems. It also makes the case for a more strategic use of communication by governments, both to pursue policy objectives and promote more open governments, by providing an extensive mapping of trends, gaps and lessons learned. Finally, it highlights pioneering efforts to move towards the professionalisation of the government communication function and identifies areas for further research to support this transition….(More)”.
The Use Of Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence in Migration Management
Joint EMN-OECD inform: “…In view of the dynamic nature of the migration policy landscape and in the context of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum, this series explores existing trends, innovative methods and approaches in migration management and will be used as a basis for further policy reflection at EU level.
This inform builds on trends identified in the EMN-OECD series on migration management informs on COVID-19 in the migration area. Its scope includes EU Member States, EMN observer countries as well as OECD countries. This inform aims to explore the role of new digital technologies in the management of migration and asylum. It focuses on a number of specific areas in migration, acquisition of citizenship, asylum procedures and border control management where digital technologies may be used (e.g. digitalisation of application processes, use of video conferencing for remote interviews, use of artificial intelligence (AI) to assist decision making processes, use of blockchain technology). It also considers the implications of using these types of technologies on fundamental rights…(More)”.
Trust with integrity: Harnessing the integrity dividends of digital government for reducing corruption in developing countries
Paper by Carlos Santiso: “Does digitalization reduce corruption? What are the benefits of data-driven digital government innovations to strengthen public integrity and advance the Sustainable Development Goals? While the correlation between digitalization and corruption is well established, there is less actionable evidence on the effects of specific digitalization reforms on different types of corruption and the policy channels through which they operate. This paper unbundles the integrity dividends of digital reforms that the pandemic has accelerated. It analyses the rise of integrity-tech and integrity analytics in the anticorruption space, deployed by data-savvy integrity institutions. It also assesses the broader integrity dividends of government digitalization for cutting redtape, reducing discretion and increasing transparency in government services and social transfers. It argues that digital government can be an effective anticorruption strategy, with subtler yet deeper effects. There nevertheless needs to be greater synergies between digital reforms and anticorruption strategies….(More)”.