For the past three months, the AI&F Board and particular Directors David Brenner, Gretchen Huizinga, Dan Rasmus, and Reid Maclellan have been developing a new proposal we are calling FE2 – Faith belief leading to personal Ethical position comparing to company Ethical policy.
We are seeking through this project to provide resources for technology workers, faith leaders and others to translate faith beliefs into relevant, consistent, and workable ethical positions that will increase the opportunities for human flourishes which AI promises while decreasing the risk of destructive applications. Such a translation of faith beliefs will also allow technology workers and the company managers charged with deploying ethics policies to speak in the same language, and provide further support for the strong application of ethics policies that will make a difference in corporate outcomes and success.
As a beginning, Dan Rasmus, our Director of Content with a strong background in digital strategy and think tank research management, has agreed to spend the months of October and November creating our foundation for this project – a database that will collect the essential knowledge to organize this space between faith belief and AI ethics. Using well-proven, highly relational and flexible software called TheBrain, Dan is doing a determined and detailed data scrape in the following categories:
- The landscape of AI ethics organizations, AI companies that do or should have policies, and faith technology worker networks and organizations;
- The existence of AI ethics policies and best practices, both secular and faith-oriented;
- Literature and research addressing AI issues from a faith perspective; and
- Literature and research on how technology workers and corporate ethics officers can and do influence their corporations’ ethical practices.
Originally the board had planned to pay several interns to collect such research on a part time basis over a six month period under Dan’s direction. It became clear quickly, however, that we could launch faster and more effectively by asking Dan to do this work with his decades of experience in research and consulting in this area. He has graciously agreed to donate in the form of time almost all of what he would normally charge, accepting only the rate we would have paid an intern. Total cost of this project is $9,600 of which we have in hand $5,000. Your support in funding the remainder of this project by donating here will create this “one stop shop” for all things relating Faith and AI ethics.
While Dan is doing this research, we are continuing to develop the remaining elements of the Project, in part through conversations we are scheduling with our likely partners and our Founding Experts. These elements include a potential “ethical decisionmaking process tool”, a potential reorganization of our expert community, and more effective direction of our communications channel.
Later this month and in early November, we will be having a series of Zoom Calls with Founding Experts to discuss how we can organize going forward for maximize mutual benefit. Founding Experts – please watch your emails for details on FE2 and an invitation to this conversation. For other subscribers – if you’d like more information about planned additional elements of the FE2 project ahead, email AI&F’s board chair at dmbrenner@aiandfaith.org.
