Empowering Local Communities Using Artificial Intelligence

TL;DR

This paper explores how AI can be used to empower local communities by co-creating AI systems that address societal and environmental issues, highlighting challenges and proposing collaborative approaches.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for co-creating AI-powered systems with local stakeholders, emphasizing the importance of collaborative methods in multi-stakeholder contexts.

Findings

Identified key challenges in deploying AI in local community settings

Proposed new collaboration approaches for AI co-creation

Provided case studies demonstrating practical applications

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly used to analyze large amounts of data in various practices, such as object recognition. We are specifically interested in using AI-powered systems to engage local communities in developing plans or solutions for pressing societal and environmental concerns. Such local contexts often involve multiple stakeholders with different and even contradictory agendas, resulting in mismatched expectations of these systems' behaviors and desired outcomes. There is a need to investigate if AI models and pipelines can work as expected in different contexts through co-creation and field deployment. Based on case studies in co-creating AI-powered systems with local people, we explain challenges that require more attention and provide viable paths to bridge AI research with citizen needs. We advocate for developing new collaboration approaches and mindsets that are needed to co-create AI-powered systems in multi-stakeholder contexts to address local concerns.