https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3z0vnVIfpU&t=2160s

Discussions on frontier technologies, such as AI, tend to be abstract. Questions like “how can AI be deployed in an ethical manner?” or “how is AI going to change the nature of work?” beg specification of what is meant by AI and who is likely to be impacted. To make things more complicated, advanced technologies sometimes go unseen. They can be embedded in complex systems, and their implications and importance go unrecognized, even by those who use these systems. The infrastructure they require and the means through which they are deployed also vary across locations and sectors. How do we overcome these challenges to be more inclusive in thinking about frontier technologies, and not leaving our collective technological futures to those few having access to boardrooms in Silicon Valley?

As a humble contribution to this immense task, the UNDP Accelerator Labs worked with Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) to create a Framework for Conducting National Dialogues on Frontier Technologies.

Our submission will report and present on the implementation of this Framework through two pilots which were conducted in Morocco and Paraguay during March 2024. In these trials, 200 persons were interviewed across 50 individual consultations and four different modalities: in-person workshops, virtual workshops, online surveys, and street interviews. Each approach has strengths and weaknesses, particularly on axes of accessibility and conversation depth, with a mixed modalities approach more likely to foster a broad and inclusive consultation program.

The Consultation Framework proposes a way to anchor conversations around recent technological interactions of participants to avoid getting lost in abstraction. We think of the Consultation Framework as a flexible foundation for structuring consultations, rather than a prescriptive checklist of action items. The recommendations provided should be adapted for specific frontier technologies (like AI or bioengineering), national contexts, or technological maturity, to ensure situated, inclusive and insightful conversations. We hope that supporting these kinds of consultations will create space for new dialogues and ultimately diversify inputs to global conversations on these technologies.

This work aims to complement UNDP’s AI Readiness Assessment which is intended for governments to take stock of the AI landscape in their country, and to assess their level of expertise across sectors. The Framework is focused on citizens and gathers different perspectives towards the development and deployment of frontier technology, complementing the Readiness Assessment from the bottom up.

Given the growing influence of frontier technologies on everyday life and the rapid pace at which they evolve, there is an urgent need to include the input of persons from around the world before the gap widens between stakeholders in the Global North and the Global Majority. We hope this draft framework is a contribution towards that end.