Workshopping AI: Who’s at the Table?

In 2017, the Canadian federal government launched the “Pan-Canadian Strategy on Artificial Intelligence,” an ambitious plan to make Canada “a global leader in AI.” As part of this plan, the government sought to stimulate discussion about the ethical and societal implications of AI by sponsoring a series of AI & Society workshops. Hosted by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), these workshops brought together academics, engineers, and policymakers to discuss the impact of AI on healthcare, education, the modern workplace, Indigenous communities, and other areas. In its reports, CIFAR describes the AI & Society workshops as inclusive, diverse forums that allow actors from a range of different disciplinary, occupational, and ethnic backgrounds to express their opinions and concerns about AI. This paper investigates whether the AI & Society workshops are truly inclusive, or whether they privilege the voices and perspectives of some actors over others. It will be argued that, by inviting only “experts,” “thought leaders,” and “community leaders” to participate, the workshops systematically exclude laypeople and average consumers of technology. This is highly problematic since average consumers bear many of the social costs of advancements in AI. After critiquing the workshops, the paper proposes ways to amplify the voices of regular users of AI in public and intellectual discourse.