April 2, 2024

Register now for the NLP-CoP Ethics and Governance Working Group Meeting on April 18th

*ChatGPT4/DALL-E: An illustration of a group of people standing at the crossroads of a range of ethical decisions about AI – privacy, ethics, safety and accountability.*

Over the past 18 months, we’ve seen that the most common questions in the development and humanitarian sector about Generative AI (GenA) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) are related to Ethics and Governance.

This is the case for both internal use of emerging AI — e.g., for improving efficiencies or for monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) efforts — and for community facing or programmatic use of emerging AI (e.g., designing chatbots for the communities we are working with).

Ethics and Governance Working Group 2024 Kick-Off Meeting

On April 18th at 10am ET/ 3pm BST, the MERL Tech Natural Language Processing Community of Practice (NLP-CoP)’s Ethics & Governance Working Group will hold our first meeting of the year (and, if the appetite for guidance at the recent ICT4D conference in Accra is anything to go by, one of many!)

Since this is our first meeting of 2024, in addition to talks from experts already engaging with the subject of Ethics and Governance within AI and NLP, we also want to hear more about your needs, hopes and ideas for the Working Group itself.

Expert speakers

Our speakers include:

Elizabeth Shaughnessy, Digital Programmes Lead at Oxfam GB (TBC), who will be talking about the Humanitarian AI Code of Conduct;
Natasha Beale, Associate Director for the Evaluation and Learning Unit at The Asia Foundation, discussing the process of producing internal guidance for teams;
Girl Effect, on whose behalf we’ll be sharing some practical guidance around developing ethical GenAI powered chatbots for Sexual & Reproductive Health.

We hope this range of experts and applications will provide you with a solid introduction to the issues and practical steps involved in conceiving, designing and deploying ethical AI tools within international development programming.

Getting to know each other

We also invite you to come prepared to introduce yourself and share a little about how we can make the Working Group (and the CoP) work for you! Come prepared to share…

What’s your level of expertise with NLP/AI and ethics/governance?
What specific knowledge relating to it are you aiming to accomplish in the short and long term?
What specific tasks do you need to accomplish?
What formats of communication and learning work best for you?
Do you have any specific projects you’d like support with?

Register now

Register here to join us on April 18th at 10am ET/ 3pm BST. This meeting is open to all, NLP-CoP members and non-members alike!

The NLP-CoP’s Philanthropy and Emerging AI Working Group will also be hosting a meeting this week (April 16, 11-12ET) on developing internal guidance and norms on use of GenAI. If you work at a Foundation or Philanthropic Organization and would like to join for that meeting, please contact Linda for more information.

Join the NLP-CoP!

And if you haven’t already, find out more about joining the NLP Community of Practice convened by the MERL Tech Initiative! As well as gaining access to resources and events at the intersection of MERL and NLP, you can join a wide range of working groups covering everything from NLP in Africa to Social and Behavior Change Communications.