Social Science Is Necessary for Operationalizing Socially Responsible Foundation Models

TL;DR

This paper argues that integrating social science into foundation model research is essential for understanding and mitigating their social impacts, promoting responsible development and deployment.

Contribution

It proposes a conceptual framework viewing foundation models as sociotechnical systems and advocates for interdisciplinary collaboration between AI and social science.

Findings

Framework for studying foundation models as sociotechnical systems

Emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration for responsible AI

Strategies for integrating social science in model development

Abstract

With the rise of foundation models, there is growing concern about their potential social impacts. Social science has a long history of studying the social impacts of transformative technologies in terms of pre-existing systems of power and how these systems are disrupted or reinforced by new technologies. In this position paper, we build on prior work studying the social impacts of earlier technologies to propose a conceptual framework studying foundation models as sociotechnical systems, incorporating social science expertise to better understand how these models affect systems of power, anticipate the impacts of deploying these models in various applications, and study the effectiveness of technical interventions intended to mitigate social harms. We advocate for an interdisciplinary and collaborative research paradigm between AI and social science across all stages of foundation model research and development to promote socially responsible research practices and use cases, and outline several strategies to facilitate such research.