A COVID-era research project into emerging technologies and their use for the public interest

As we write these words, the world is deep in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, a global recession or depression, and a historic uprising for Black liberation. It is a time of great crisis, a time of reckoning. Yet, as author Arundhati Roy writes, the pandemic may also be seen as a portal, a "gateway between one world and the next."

Emerging technologies will clearly be important to our passage through this portal. Can we develop new tools that will allow us to live with a degree of safety from the virus? Can we ensure that the technologies we develop do not unintentionally reinforce anti-Blackness and other forms of structural inequality? Which of many potential futures do we want to build together?

In an effort to develop signposts to guide us along the journey, Civic Hall, with the generous support of the McGovern Foundation, gathered a group of researchers, technologists, and community organizers to explore the potential for emerging technologies to serve the public interest. For the purposes of this study, we used “emerging technologies” as a broad umbrella term (abbreviated as “EmTech” throughout). We paid special attention to public interest uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI), in particular machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), automated decision support systems (ADS), and bots, as well as to other tools including augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), drones, remote sensing, and satellite imagery. We focused on the types of EmTech most likely to be accessible to public interest organizations. Other emerging areas like robotics and autonomous vehicles are also likely to have immense societal ramifications, but are not yet widely available. One of our key findings is also that what counts as EmTech is highly contextual.

We set out to review existing efforts to use these tools for public interest purposes, synthesize lessons learned, and mark possible pathways forward. To that end, our team of five researchers conducted a literature review, interviewed 24 field leaders, including data scientists, technologists, artists, activists, researchers, policy advocates, and others, and developed a database of 246 relevant resources.

What we found gave us cause for both caution and optimism. We have synthesized our work into seven key findings and recommendations, summarized here and presented in depth in the full report that follows. We hope that our findings provide insight into how and under what conditions emerging technologies can help advance the public interest, so that as we move together through the portal, we take only the baggage that we truly want and need.