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PIT-UN's Mission is More Relevant than Ever
Our 2023 Faculty Fellow reflects on a year of collaboration and growth across the Network
Author: Sylvester Johnson was PIT-UN’s Faculty Fellow in 2023, and is Associate Vice Provost for Public Interest Technology at Virginia Tech, where he leads the Tech for Humanity initiative.
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Reflecting on the year 2023 as a faculty fellow for the Public Interest Technology-University Network, I am moved by the dynamism and commitment the network has shown for advancing the interest of human communities. By elevating public interest as the standard for innovation in our technological society, PIT-UN is enabling a national collaboration predicated on a mission that is timely, urgent, and transformative.
I am especially inspired by the role of public interest technology as an emerging field that traverses numerous sectors–higher education, civil society, government, human rights organizations, and private companies that include the nonprofit and for-profit sector. Fostering engagement across these sectors is especially crucial. The 2023 Convening at Boston University was a beautiful manifestation of this approach. We witnessed rich conversations and networking between academic practitioners across the sciences and humanities, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, government, and philanthropy.
This comprehensive societal approach is precisely what is required to govern technology in a way that is accountable to democratic outcomes and greater equity in our complex society. It also underscores why public interest technology should never be equated with a particular academic discipline or specialization. The convening demonstrated, rather, that public interest technology is a mission that requires collaboration between many different stakeholders.
This commitment to building connections across sectors of our society could not come at a more critical time, as 2023 was marked by pivotal developments in technology innovation and regulatory efforts. The emergence and widespread commercialization of generative AI is reshaping industries and communities around the world, arguably more than any other single form of digital technology. Governments have advanced notable efforts to structure regulation of AI with input from PIT-UN members and partner organizations. The White House “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights,” released in the fall of 2022, grounds clear and specific goals for governing AI with justice, equity, and human dignity at the center. In January 2023, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), housed within the US Department of Commerce, released its “AI Risk Management Framework,”and just weeks following the 2023 PIT-UN Convening, the White House issued an executive order with key regulatory requirements for the development of AI and related technologies. Taken together, these developments at the federal level signal a wider adoption of the public interest framework that PIT-UN has championed since its inception in 2019.
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The aims and concerns of public interest technology have not been limited to the United States, of course. In fact, much of the leadership in regulating technology has advanced outside the United States. China has implemented sweeping policies to regulate generative AI and other forms of algorithmic services, while the EU is culminating its efforts to finalize legislation that will regulate AI through risk assessment. The United Kingdom, moreover, recently convened an AI Summit to structure measures of governance for technology.
PIT-UN’s Quarterly Member Calls in 2023 delved into the heart of these issues, examining the role of our societal institutions in responding to generative AI; exploring the complicated role that governments play in both regulating technology and funding its creation–for instance, to pursue military and national security goals; and engaging with the myriad ways the network might engage the public to activate more participation from private industry while fostering new possibilities for public-private partnerships. The network has also pursued a more ambitious approach to connecting stakeholders across the diversity of institutions within the network with the aim of optimizing more creative and inclusive collaboration.
As we witness a global range of efforts to regulate AI, we are reminded that bridging the gap between fast-paced technological change and policy frameworks requires more than creating legislation and formal governmental oversight. It also requires participation and leadership among non-governmental stakeholders whose work is calibrated to advance equity, enable innovation, and protect highly vulnerable populations.
PIT-UN was founded with a clear focus on social justice, diversity, and inclusion as integral to the broad set of strategies for ensuring that technology serves the needs and interests of human communities. Our work has always been about expanding our conception of the ‘public,’ and including more people ‘in the room’ and ‘at the table.’
It is notable, for this reason, that the history of the network has paralleled the emergence of a flourishing ecosystem of social justice technologists a committed to democratizing participation in the governance of technology. There are many constituents of this ecosystem–the Algorithmic Justice League, the Distributed AI Research Institute, the Partnership on AI, and Athena Tech and Atrocities Advisory LLC are key examples. This new ecosystem is characterized by leadership that is far more inclusive and diverse than that represented in traditional technology circles. These organizations are also predicated on a mission that advances justice, accountability, and a keen regard for those who have the most to lose if governance mechanisms fail.
As we approach the end of 2023, we should be encouraged by a growing number of opportunities to realize the full potential of the public interest technology mission. The complicated challenges that continue to arise are opportunities to structure the ethical governance of technology to serve the public interest. It should serve as a reminder that our work grows ever more urgent and relevant to ensuring the best outcomes for our nation and our world.