Introduction

AI Localism in practice is a report prepared by Sara Marcucci, Uma Kalkar, and Stefaan Verhulst of The Governance Laboratory (TheGovLab) and published in November 2022. The report serves as a primer for policy makers to learn more about current AI governance practices at the local level and inspire them to carry out similar things in their own field.

As a first step, the report clearly mentions that neither AI Localism necessarily equal “good governance” of AI at the local level nor the presence of AI localism confirms robust national- and state-level AI policy. Having clarified that, the report points out that the AI Localism project created a knowledge base and taxonomy on the dimensions of local AI governance. And identified key elements in its governance such as principles and rights, engagement, laws and policies, procurement, transparency and literacy.

The report delves deeper into each of these elements and defines the need for it. It also provides some apt examples on how cities and local administrations are realizing public procurement of AI and then draws some conclusions based on their observations and analysis.

The report also elaborates on the fundamentals of AI governance the value proposition of such initiatives, and their application in cities worldwide. Based on its analysis, the report zeroes down on ten lessons on AI localism for policymakers, data, AI experts, and the informed public to consider. They include a) providing a North Star for governance, b) fostering public engagement such as crowdsourcing, awareness campaigns and mini-assemblies, c) engaging in AI literacy to encourage familiarity, d) tapping into local expertise by establishing or supporting research centers, e) innovating on methods through which transparency can be provided, f) establishing new means for accountability and oversight, g) establishing data collaboratives to tackle asymmetries and g) strategizing good governance so as to embed smart AI use across agencies and open up AI awareness to residents to make responsible data use.

Relevance of the Report

The report is a step towards systemizing our approach to AI localism. In a very clear and crisp way, the report defines AI localism and how the cities are adopting it in a manner needed by them to address multiple issues ranging from environment to social and economic equity.

Key Takeaways

• AI Localism is an area that is gathering interest both in practice and research
• Cities and states are leading the charge in developing governance frameworks and implementing policies
• Despite its increase in usage, there are questions on what constitutes appropriate and ethical use of the technology and their governance models
• Systemizing an approach towards AI localism, a framework for implementing and assessing AI localism initiatives needs to be drawn up based on learnings from cities around the world