Building a Community of Practice: Reflections from our 2nd All Partners Meeting

Below is an article originally written by PowerToFly Partner Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society, and published on November 21, 2018. Go to the Partnership on AI (PAI)'s page on PowerToFly to see their open positions and learn more.

On Wednesday, November 14th, the Partnership on AI held its 2nd annual All Partners Meeting in San Francisco, California. Representatives from our 80+ member organizations – for-profit companies, civil society organizations, academic institutions, and advocacy groups – traveled from across the globe to reflect on 2018 progress, and to plan for the future. It was a day of insight, collaboration, and new perspectives.

The day kicked off with a welcome from PAI leadership, with reflections on how PAI has evolved over the past year while also previewing 2019 plans.

Attendees heard from members of our Board, new members of our Senior Staff, our Working Group Co-Chairs, new Partners, and external experts, each sharing insights from the past year, with topics ranging from the challenges of designing a global multi-stakeholder organization to designing and incentivizing equitable growth models to ensure that AI technology is built by and reflective of a diverse constituency, and that its benefits are broadly shared.

On Thursday, November 15th, the Partnership's Working Groups convened in San Francisco. Working Group members shared progress, addressed challenges, and set forthcoming work priorities around specific issues. We look forward to sharing concrete work outputs as they emerge in 2019.

Thursday also saw the launch of two new Working Groups: Collaborations Between People and AI Systems, which will aim to research the ways in which we can ensure that the development of AI is used as a tool to effectively assist humans; and Social and Societal Influences of AI, which will focus in the immediate-term on issues associated with AI and the media, including synthetic media. The Working Group charters will be posted on the Partnership's website when they are finalized, with more updates coming soon.

The ongoing enthusiasm and commitment of our Partners is testament to the growing number of unanswered questions around AI and its impacts, and our community's shared sense of urgency in finding answers to these questions. We look forward to building on our ongoing efforts as we head into 2019.