Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law and Society (TRAILS)

人工智能（AI）系统具有增强人类能力和提高生产力的潜力。它们还可以促进创新，缓解复杂问题。目前的人工智能系统并不是以透明的方式创建的，这使得它们对公众的信任构成了挑战。所使用的不透明过程产生的结果不为人所知。AI系统可能造成的伤害进一步破坏了信任。受影响最大的是被排除在人工智能系统开发之外的社区。这种缺乏可信度的情况将导致这些人工智能技术的采用速度放缓。人工智能创新的关键是要包括受这些人工智能系统的好处和危害影响的群体。TRAILS（Trustworthy AI in Law and Society）研究所是马里兰州大学、乔治华盛顿大学、摩根州立大学和康奈尔大学的合作伙伴。它鼓励社区参与人工智能技术，工具和科学理论的开发。提出的设计和政策建议将促进人工智能系统的可信度。TRAILS研究所的第一个目标是发现改变人工智能系统设计和开发的方法。这将有助于社区对人工智能技术的采用做出明智的选择。第二个目标是为行业和政府制定最佳做法。这将促进人工智能创新，同时保持社区安全，参与和知情。TRAILS研究所制定了明确的计划，以增加受影响社区的参与。这包括通过国会工作人员参与K-12教育。这些计划将引起受影响社区的关注和期望。它们还提供了对人工智能系统的风险和好处的更好理解。TRAILS研究所的研究计划确定了四个关键目标。这些目标针对AI系统开发生命周期的关键方面。第一是社会价值观。它涉及到在人工智能开发的各个方面增加参与。这确保了人工智能系统产生的价值反映了社区和利益相关方的价值。这包括与不同社区的参与式设计。其结果是基于社区的干预和适应人工智能开发生命周期。第二个重点是技术设计。它包括开发算法，以促进人工智能的透明度和信任。这包括开发提高AI系统鲁棒性的工具。它还促进了用户和开发人员对AI系统如何运行的理解。第三种信任是社会技术感知。这涉及到新的措施，包括心理测量技术和实验范式的发展。这些措施将评估人工智能系统的可解释性和可解释性。这将使我们能够更深入地理解和感知现有的指标和算法。这提供了对所包括的社区成员所感知和持有的价值观的理解。第四是治理。它包括对数据和技术的治理制度的记录和分析。这些为平台和技术监管的发展提供了基础。民族学家将分析研究所本身和合作伙伴组织。他们将记录技术选择转化为治理影响的方式。研究的重点是两个使用启发的领域。首先是信息传播系统（例如，社交媒体平台）。第二种是能源密集型系统（例如，自治系统）。该研究所在人工智能方面的教育和劳动力发展工作包括新的教育产品。这些课程迎合了从中学到高管教育的许多市场。TRAILS研究所特别注重扩大基础教育的获得。重点是历史上被边缘化和少数群体的学习者和用户。该研究所将与这些社区合作，向参与者学习，教育和招募参与者。重点是保留、支持和赋权那些在主流人工智能中被边缘化的人。将这些社区整合到这个人工智能研究计划中，扩大了人工智能开发和治理的参与度。美国国家标准与技术研究院（NIST）与NSF合作，为该研究院提供资金。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems have potential to enhance human capacity and increase productivity. They also can catalyze innovation and mitigate complex problems. Current AI systems are not created in a way that is transparent making them a challenge to public trust. The opaque processes used produce results that are not well understood. Trust is further undermined by the harms that AI systems can cause. Those most affected are the communities excluded from participating in AI system developments. This lack of trustworthiness will result in slower adoption of these AI technologies. It is critical to AI innovation to include groups affected by the benefits and harms of these AI systems. The TRAILS (Trustworthy AI in Law and Society) Institute is a partnership of the University of Maryland, The George Washington University, Morgan State University, and Cornell University. It encourages community participation in AI development of techniques, tools, and scientific theories. Design and policy recommendations produced will promote the trustworthiness of AI systems. A first goal of the TRAILS Institute is to discover ways to change the design and development of AI systems. This will help communities make informed choices about AI technology adoption. A second goal is the development of best practices for industry and government. This will foster AI innovation while keeping communities safe, engaged, and informed. The TRAILS Institute has explicit plans for increasing participation of affected communities. This includes participation of K-12 education up through Congressional staff. These plans will elicit the concerns and expectations from the affected communities. They also provide improved understanding of the risks and benefits of AI-enabled systems.The TRAILS Institute's research program identifies four key thrusts. These thrusts target key aspects of the AI system development lifecycle. The first is Social Values. It involves increasing participation throughout all aspects of AI development. This ensures the values produced by AI systems reflect community and interested parties’ values. This includes participatory design with diverse communities. The result is community-based interventions and adaptations for the AI development lifecycle. The second thrust is Technical Design. It includes the development of algorithms to promote transparency and trust in AI. This includes the development of tools that increase robustness in AI systems. It also promotes user and developer understanding of how AI systems operate. The third trust is Socio-Technical Perceptions. This involves the development of novel measures including psychometric techniques and experimental paradigms. These measures will assess the interpretability and explainability of AI systems. This will enable a deeper understanding and perception of existing metrics and algorithms. This provides understanding of the values perceived and held by included community members. The fourth thrust is Governance. It includes documentation and analysis of governance regimes for both data and technologies. These provide the underpinning AI for the development of platform and technology regulation. Ethnographers will analyze the institute itself and partner organizations. They will document ways in which technical choices translate to governance impacts. The research focus is in two use-inspired areas. The first being information dissemination systems (e.g., social medial platforms). The second is energy-intensive systems (e.g., autonomous systems). The institute's education and workforce development efforts in AI include new educational offerings. These cater to many markets, ranging from secondary through executive education. The TRAILS Institute is especially focused on expanding access to foundational education. The focus is on historically marginalized and minoritized groups of learners and users. The institute will work with these communities to learn from, educate, and recruit participants. The focus is to retain, support, and empower those marginalized in mainstream AI. The integration of these communities into this AI research program broadens participation in AI development and governance.The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is partnering with NSF to provide funding for this Institute.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.