23. Civic AI Lab

"I have a theme that is important over a hundred seconds, but I have another hundred seconds. We're talking about inequality and particularly the interaction between inequality and technology. The Civic AI Lab actually has two ambitions. The first is minimal. Namely make at least inequality not worse with technology. I think we agree with that. The bigger ambition is to make a better society with less discrimination and more equality. With more opportunities for all. Something much more ambitious, also politically speaking. How you answer this question,
how you do this, is a world of difference between South and Southeast. The problems we have in different parts of the city are not the same.

Our vision is three steps. The first step is AI for people. That is actually do AI for the good, but is still very top-down. That's actually we from The Hague. We from Amsterdam are going to do what we think is right.

The second step is AI with people. Co-creation. How do you involve people in the process? And the third step is even more radical, which is AI by people. Who owns it? Who owns it? How do you do that? What does that look like? At least not Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.I can tell you that.

We are doing something very interesting. Namely, we are looking from computer science into
how do algorithms work? But also, how do they feel too? For example, we're talking to parents in Southeast about the school choice algorithm. How does that feel to you? Does that feel humane? Does it feel humane in South? Does it feel humane in New West? And that interaction
between hard science, what is your political objective, How is it experienced by normal people who are not on openresearch, with all due respect. That's our research. Thank you very much."

This presentation was part of the research carousel during the program "How do you know what you know?" on January 14, 2025 at Paradiso, Amsterdam.

See more...

... about the Civic AI Lab in this article.

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