Event: What does the US AI Action Plan mean for the use of AI in the social sector?

On July 23, the White House unveiled a new set of AI directives that will shape the US federal government’s approach to artificial intelligence. The new AI Action Plan and accompanying executive orders indicate a dramatic shift away from oversight and toward aggressive deregulation. Among other things, these plans would remove environmental protections and land-use regulations, undermine state-level laws, politicize technical standards, dismantle regulatory guardrails, and speed the construction of data centers on public lands; all of which raises serious concerns regarding climate and environment, systemic bias, misinformation, diversity, and technical integrity. 

The MERL Tech Initiative’s Natural Language Processing Community of Practice is hosting an event on August 21st, at 10 am ET to discuss how these AI directives may affect our work as MERL Professionals and non-profit workers, how they might affect wider society, and what opportunities exist for advocates to raise concerns and fight for an approach to AI that is ethical, responsible and rooted in public well-being and sustainability. We’ll be joined by a brilliant line-up of speakers, including Camille Stewart, Denise Baer, and Jen Weedon. 

Get to know our Speakers

• Camille Stewart Gloster, Esq is a strategist, attorney, and policy leader recognized for her expertise at the intersection of technology, cybersecurity, national security, and foreign policy. She is the former Deputy National Cyber Director for Technology & Ecosystem Security for The White House. In her role, Camille led technology, supply chain, data security, and cyber workforce and education efforts for the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD). Her career has spanned the private, public, and non- profit sectors. She is CEO of CAS Strategies, LLC.
  
• Denise Baer is a political scientist, evaluator and consultant. She is the author or co-author of three books and scholarly articles which use experimental, survey and qualitative data. Most recently, she served as the Founding Director of the Department of Evaluation for the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), one of the four core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). She is adjunct faculty in the Elliott School at George Washington University and Communications Chair of the Democracy and Governance Thematic Interest Group for the American Evaluation Association (AEA).
  
• Jen Weedon is a trust & safety and security professional with a deep interdisciplinary background at the intersection of technology, risk, and responsible innovation. Her work spans academia and industry, with a recent focus on red teaming AI systems, socio-technical risk assessments, and safety-by-design practices across platforms including social media, gaming, and AR. She currently works as a lecturer and researcher at Columbia University’s Institute for Global Politics Technology & Democracy Initiative. One of her research interests is around how emerging AI policy frameworks affect information integrity and civic infrastructure.

Join us

This session is taking place on August 21st, at 10 am ET. Please register to join.