Artificial Intelligence and Data Visitation (AIDV) WG Plenaries

Group Session February 13, 2024

A radical approach to AI governance for data spaces and the development of digital twins

Plenary: RDA 22nd Plenary Meeting – Fully Virtual

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Meeting objectives

The main objective of this working meeting is to examine the deliverables of the EOSC-Future/RDA Artificial Intelligence & Data Visitation Working Group (AIDV-WG) in relation to the need for AI governance models that respond to transformative technologies. On 24 January 2024 the European Commission published an important Communication on ‘Artificial Intelligence in the European Commission (AI@EC): A strategic vision to foster the development and use of lawful, safe and trustworthy Artificial Intelligence systems in the European Commission’. Much of the EOSC-Future/RDA Artificial Intelligence and Data Visitation Working Group (AIDV-WG) precedes and foresees many of the concerns and objectives raised in this communication. The AIDV-WG understood early on the need for policy, regulation, and ethics to address the need ‘for machine-based systems designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy and that may exhibit adaptiveness after deployment and that, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers, from the input it received, how to generate output such as content, predictions, recommendations, or decisions, that can influence physical or virtual environments’.

The AIDV-WG has now achieved three important deliverables that contribute to this EU-recognised need from a global perspective with the already engaged local action inside and outside the EU:

Guidance for informed consent in the context of artificial intelligence and data
Guidance for Ethics Committees Reviewing AI and DV
AI Bill of Rights Recommendation for EOSC-Future and Research Data Alliance promoting fundamental human rights and advancing trust in AI for Open Science

In the framework of this plenary session, the AIDV-WG will challenges its deliverables against the need for reliable and adaptable governance models that meet the needs of tranformative technologies (e.g., digital twins) within newly evolving data spaces at the international, regional, and local levels. The session is specifically designed to provide outside review of the AIDV-WG’s deliverables held up against the local actions and global connections realized in the global community developed through the AIDV-WG and its interaction with local needs against international, regional, and national developments for AI and DV. Importantly, the AIDV-WG maintains an important perspective from AI governance on the need for the RDA community and others to examine together horizontal actions across data disciplines, sectors, and systems for engaging digital communities in building data systems for achieving the United Nation’s 2030 Strategic Development Goals (SDGs) and other real-world outcomes. AI governance for transformative technologies is increasingly at the center of this interest. This is a working meeting that is focused on discussion with and input from the RDA community in order to advance the dissemination, uptake, and implementation of the AIDV-WG’s outcomes for the goverance of AI and DV across RDA activities and in relation with RDA partners.

The AIDV-WG proposes this session to examine the dissemination and implementation phase of its work, having achieved its deliverables. Most importantly, it concentrates on the implementation and adaptability of its deliverables for the needs AI governance of today’s digital societies.

Meeting presenters

AIDV-WG members on local and global perspectives related to the AIDV-WG deliverables; Two outside discussants related to the AIDV-WG deliverables; Structured participation for a virtual audience (see the draft agenda below, speakers to be confirmed)

Meeting agenda

Draft agenda. Design and speakers to be confirmed.

Time	Title and Speaker(s)
00:00	Opening Remarks from the Session Chairperson Natalie Meyers, USA Co-chair, EOSC-Future/RDA Artificial Intelligence & Data Visitation Working Group (AIDV-WG)
00:05	Rethinking AI governance for addressing data spaces Barbara Prainsack, Austria Chair – European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) Head – Research Platform Governance of Digital Practices Professor for Comparative Policy Analysis, University of Vienna, Austria
00:15	The responsible virtual twin Liesbeth Geris, Belgium Coordinator, European Virtual Human Twin (EDITH) Project Professor, University of Liege, Belgium Professor University of Leuven, Belgium
00:25	Structured audience interaction
00:40	Local action in the governance of health data spaces Rita S. Sitorus, Indonesia Global connections for the governance of health data spaces Alexander Bernier, Canada Local action in the development of virtual twins Valeriia Sokolchik, Belarus Global connections for the governance of vitual twins Perihan Elif Ekmekci, Turkey
01:00	Developing AI governance to meet transformative digital technologies for local action and global connection: the AIDV-WG’s deliverables Anne Cambon-Thomsen & Gauthier Chassang, France
01:10	Structured audience interaction
00:25	Summary of the Session Francis P. Crawley, Belgium Co-chair, EOSC-Future/RDA Artificial Intelligence & Data Visitation Working Group (AIDV-WG)
01:30	Close of the Working Session

Target audience

Adopters	Value/Impact
Scientists/Researchers	To have access to and the ability to understand how to implement the AIDV-WG’s deliverables in a transformative digital governance environment
UN, international, and national agencies responsible for data and AI management and governance	To provide a framework for AI governance in the digital environment where the UN Strategic Development Goals (SDGs) need to be met.
Data Scientists & Data support professionals (e.g., data managers, data curators)	To design and help implement the the AIDV-WG’s deliverables in a transformative digital governance environment.
Open Science/Research/Data Commons professionals	To develop open science features, functionalities, and interoperability incorporating the AIDV-WG’s deliverables designed for a transformative digital governance environment
Tool developers/ providers	To assist data system, tool, and services providers in understanding the latest developments in AI governance at the international, regional, and local levels
Research performing organisations	To make informed recommendations at the organisational policy level and to research data and computation departments on how to implement the AIDV-WG’s deliverables in a transformative digital governance environment
Publishers and editors	To assist publishers, editors, and scientists in the implementation of the the AIDV-WG’s deliverables in a transformative digital governance environment
Media: mass media and social media	To ensure that the the AIDV-WG’s deliverables address the current need for accurate and reliable data and AI uses in mass and social media, helping to combat misinformation and disinformation, while also contributing to the fight against censorship and the need to provide the public and citizens with as complete and accurate information as is available, including the recognition of its limitations
Funders	To assist funders who support data science, AI applications, and science generally to understand the value in implementing the AIDV-WG’s deliverables in a transformative digital governance environment

Additional links to informative material

Please refer to the AIDV-WG’s Repository and the Shared AIDV-WG Literature Update, created and maintained by Natalie Meyers, This link will help to ensure that the working session participants have access to the past and most recent updates on AI and DV, particularly in the context of ELSI, the SDGs, and other important data and AI societal and governance concerns.

Refer in addition to AIDV-WG’s Zotero list of most relevant references (currently at 455 references). This was also created and maintained by Natalie Meyers.

Short Group Status

The EOSC-Future/RDA Artificial Intelligence and Data Visitation Working Group (AIDV-WG) began work in September 2022 with the aim of addressing ethical, legal, and social challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Visitation (DV) affecting of state-of-the art data technology impacting scientific exchange in the context of data sharing and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The AIDV-WG was established through a competitive call for proposals for RDA Working Groups focusing on the development of solutions for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), working in conjunction with the European Commission-funded project EOSC-Future.

Both AI and DV open a myriad of ethical, legal, and social issues that result in a need for transformative governance models that often have their roots in data collection, data processing, the FAIRification and curation of data, data interoperability as well as in the data archiving, data commons, and open science platforms. These ethical, legal, and social issues, however, take on new meaning when new technologies and new modes of interaction and conduct are developed for data processing, data and data tool interoperability, and data exchange. These challenges include those of access, privacy, confidentiality, consent, accountability, transparency, accuracy, integrity, and explainability. They also include issues of human rights, respect, equity, inclusion, and declonialization. The AIDV-WG has focuse on the governance issues of these technologies in the context of Open Science. It further examined the impact of these technologies on society and science policy. As European and global scientific governance moves at an accelerated pace to reform science through Open Science, particularly in its attempt to address, situation, and govern AI, it is critical that we appreciate the complexities of the ethical, legal, technical, and societal issues affecting data and AI within the framework of Open Science and its goals for the future of science in our communities and globally. The AIDV-WG built an expert cross-disciplinary network that includes expertise in AI, data science, data interoperability, data systems, and data stewardship as well as involving researchers focused on the ethical, legal, and social questions that need to be addressed by sound policy, regulation, and ethics in order meet the challenges that surround these technologies. There is a special interest to include AI designers and developers so that technical aspects of these technologies represented in the work will be strengthened.

Applicable Pathways

Data Infrastructures and Environments - Generalist

Avoid conflict with the following groups

RDA-OfR Mapping the landscape of digital research tools WG
RDA / CODATA Data Systems, Tools, and Services for Crisis Situations WG