Social Science

In 2023 and 2024, the PLATFORM group considered “the platform” on both conceptual and empirical registers. Platforms seem to assemble capabilities, users, and interests and thereby set new futures in motion. Platforms are architectures for action that enable and constrain social, cultural, economic, and political possibilities, and shape how we structure, represent, and experience the world. Platforms are socio-technical infrastructures that can coordinate, consolidate, extend, and empower the activities of individuals, communities, corporations, and other actors. The group explored the gravity of the platform across humanistic and social science perspectives, advancing five theses about they simultaneously attract and repulse social action.

Response of the AI Policy and Governance Working Group to the Envoy on Technology Call for Papers on Global AI Governance. The AI Policy and Governance Working Group, convened by the Institute for Advanced Study, submits this white paper in response to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology’s Call for Papers on Global AI Governance.

Comment of the AI Policy and Governance Working Group on the NTIA Request for Comment on Dual Use Foundation Artificial Intelligence Models with Widely Available Model Weights Docket NTIA-240216-0052 The AI Policy and Governance Working Group recommends that the Biden-Harris Administration call for the development of a range of practical approaches to open foundation model release with accompanying case studies and pilot studies developed with relevant stakeholders.

Comment of the AI Policy and Governance Working Group on the NTIA AI Accountability Policy Request for Comment Docket NTIA-230407-0093 In response to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) request for comment on AI accountability policy, the AI Policy and Governance Working Group here provides 1) overarching considerations, both to offer context for our specific recommendations and to help inform federal AI policy strategy, and 2) recommendations for sociotechnical AI accountability mechanisms based on evaluation, access, and disclosure that can begin to build justified public trust in AI as an essential predicate to adequately and effectively “aligning” these technological systems and tools with democratic and human values.