August 2023
Susan Aaronson (George Washington University)
Adam Zable (Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub)
IIEP working paper 2023-08
Abstract: Governance requires trust. If policy makers inform, consult and involve citizens in decisions, policy makers are likely to build trust in their efforts. Public participation is particularly important as policy makers seek to govern data-driven technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). Although many users rely on AI systems, they do not understand how these systems use their data to make predictions and recommendations that can affect their daily lives. Over time, if they see their data being misused, users may learn to distrust both the system and how policy makers regulate them. Hence, it seems logical that policy makers would make an extra effort to inform and consult their citizens about how to govern AI systems. This paper examines whether officials informed and consulted their citizens as they developed a key aspect of AI policy — national AI strategies. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), such strategies articulate how the government sees the role of AI in the country and its contribution to the country’s social and economic development. They also set priorities for public investment in AI and delineate research and innovation priorities. Most high-middle-income and high-income nations have drafted such strategies. Building on a data set of 68 countries and the European Union, qualitative methods were used to examine whether, how and when governments engaged with their citizens on their AI strategies and whether they were responsive to public comment. The authors did not find any country which modeled responsive democratic decision making in which policy makers invited public comment, reviewed these comments and made changes in a collaborative manner. As of October 2022, some 43 of the 68 nations and the EU sample had an AI strategy, but only 18 nations attempted to engage their citizens in the strategy’s development. Moreover, only 13 of these nations issued an open invitation for public comment and only four of these 13 provided evidence that public inputs helped shape the final text. Few governments made efforts to encourage their citizens to provide such feedback. As a result, in many nations, policy makers received relatively few comments. The individuals who did comment were generally knowledgeable about AI, while the general public barely participated. Policy makers are therefore missing an opportunity to build trust in AI by not using this process to involve a broader cross-section of their constituents.
JEL Codes: P48, P51, 038
Keywords: trust, AI, political participation, governance
