Forum Objective:

At this month’s Inclusive Artificial Intelligence (AI) Forum, MKAI will try to find the relevance of the Cultural background of different regions on AI development and frameworks. Specifically, we discuss three questions:

1. How can culture Influence AI ethics and governance?
2. What are the major cultural differences around the world when it comes to the development of AI?
3. What is the Scope of co-operation considering the difference in culture and approaches towards AI?

Our objective is to find potential avenues for culturally different regions to interact and co-operate for developing governance and international standardizations for the sustainable development of AI.

Forum Abstract:

What is the importance of Culture in AI?

Understanding the influence of culture on reasoning is important for conflict resolution, prediction, and decision-making. People’s choices are rooted in their environment, upbringing, and experience. Creating AI systems that can take culturally influenced reasoning into account is crucial for creating accurate and effective computational supports for analysts, policymakers, consumers, and citizens.

Today there are more than 160 documents from different parts of the world aiming to contribute towards the ethical principles and guidelines of AI. All of these documents are based on specific cultural backgrounds and the values of nations. So as to achieve the global benefits of AI, international cooperation on many different areas of governance and ethical standards is necessary, all while respecting the diverse cultural perspectives and priorities. Although there are a lot of barriers currently in achieving this, the major issue is the mistrust among cultures and the practical challenges of coordination across locations.

So as to develop a global sustainable AI development, it will require international cooperation in every field relating to it – in AI infrastructures, ethical and governance frameworks, mechanisms of interactions and coordination, especially taking into account different cultural perspectives. Hence, through this forum, we aim to explore the possibility of creating more avenues to discuss these challenges and explore how to increase cross-cultural AI cooperation between different countries and regions.

Forum Outcomes:

Our intended outcome is to give attendees an understanding of the influences of cultural backgrounds and values of different regions in the development of AI and how can this be used to form a comprehensive AI Ethics and Governance model to ensure AI development for humanity and social good.

Also, to explain that despite these fundamental challenges of mistrust among cultures, productive cross-cultural cooperation is possible, pertaining to two basic reasons i.e. – cooperation doesn’t necessarily require achieving agreement on principles and standards in all the areas of AI and secondly, it is sometimes possible to reach an agreement on some practical issues despite having disagreements on abstract values or principles.

Forum Attendance:

MKAI events are inclusive. Our expert speakers are carefully selected for their ability to make the subject approachable and understandable. MKAI aims to help all people improve their AI-fluency and understanding of this domain. This forum is especially relevant for policymakers, Governmental leaders and corporate decision-makers.

Forum Speakers and Contributors:

• Joanna Bryson, Co-Founder at the Centre for Digital Governance & Expert; Co-Chair at Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence and Professor of Ethics and Technology
• Viviana Polisena, Member at Global AI Ethics Consortium
• Patricia Shaw, Ethics Advisory Group Member at Digital Catapult
• Chris McClean, Global Lead, Digital Ethics at Avanade
• Cansu Canca, Ph.D., Director and Founder at AI Ethics Lab