Today in Stut­tgart, the Cit­izens' Assembly "AI and Free­dom" presen­ted its recom­mend­a­tions on cit­izen par­ti­cip­a­tion in AI research to Petra Olschow­ski, Min­is­ter of Sci­ence for Baden-Württem­berg. Among oth­er things, the 40 ran­domly selec­ted cit­izens are call­ing for secure infra­struc­tures for data dona­tions, a col­lec­tion point for top­ic sug­ges­tions for AI research, and a per­man­ent cit­izens' assembly on the use of traffic data for bet­ter mobil­ity management.

Cit­izens demand trans­par­ent AI research

In addi­tion to struc­tur­al pro­pos­als, the Coun­cil also advoc­ates for great­er trans­par­ency in sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion. Among oth­er things, it calls for eas­ily under­stand­able formats such as AI fairs, dis­cus­sion pan­els, and open house events to strengthen interest and trust in AI research.

Impress­ive Commitment

Min­is­ter Olschow­ski was impressed by the cit­izens' com­mit­ment and emphas­ized the import­ance of social sup­port for AI research.

The rect­or of the Uni­ver­sity of Tübin­gen, Pro­fess­or Dr. Dr. h.c. (Dōshisha) Karla Poll­mann, also under­scored the import­ance of such par­ti­cip­at­ory formats: "Tech­no­lo­gic­al innov­a­tions must be accom­pan­ied by innov­a­tions in par­ti­cip­a­tion." Numer­ous offer­ings have been developed around RHET AI, includ­ing as part of the Uni­ver­sity of Tübingen's pub­lic engage­ment strategy.

The forty par­ti­cipants were selec­ted at ran­dom from four muni­cip­al­it­ies of dif­fer­ent sizes in Baden-Württem­berg – from large cit­ies to rur­al areas. In four ses­sions from Septem­ber to Decem­ber 2024, they dis­cussed with eth­i­cists, AI experts, and users to devel­op recom­mend­a­tions. The video [Ger­man audio only] provides insights:

Policy paper with recom­mend­a­tions published

All recom­mend­a­tions and detailed doc­u­ment­a­tion of the coun­cil meet­ings are com­piled in a policy paper [Ger­man ver­sion], which can be down­loaded here:

The offi­cial han­dover of the recom­mend­a­tions does not mark the end of the Cit­izens' Coun­cil pro­cess. The res­ults and impact of the pro­ject will be doc­u­mented on an ongo­ing basis on the web­site www.buergerrat-ki.de. The next step will be to dis­cuss the recom­mend­a­tions with the Cluster of Excel­lence "Machine Learn­ing for Sci­ence", the Cyber Val­ley Pub­lic Advis­ory Board, and the Volk­swa­gen Foundation.