Research Programs

The PI-AI-Innovation Initiative advances context-sensitive and rights-based public-interest AI for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through research and community-driven co-design of AI use cases for the SDGs, best-practices for mitigating AI related risks and creating learning modules in support of AI competency across regional, national and local contexts. It will put a particular focus on developing the business models and broader ecosystem incentives for scaling public interest AI. To this end, the initiative forms a global research consortium, which is powered by TUM Think Tank at the Technical University of Munich in collaboration with the Global Network of Centers (NoC).

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The Initiative works across three research groups:
 

1. Mapping the state of the art of public-interest AI implementation across regions and sectors, thereby diagnosing financial, political and societal barriers, defining strategies to change the incentives for public-interest AI and identifying high-priority societal challenges to be tackled with the help of technology and digital spaces.

2. Co-designing a repository of public interest AI use cases, risk/safety/rights frameworks and aspiring leaders and innovators in the field  through effective community engagement and co-ideation. Application fields may relate to climate change mitigation and adaptation, educational technology, inclusive societies, disinformation and elections.

3. Scaling investments in rights-based and sustainable public-interest AI by creating innovative financing mechanisms, building the business cases and incentives for private sector and philanthropic investments and matching innovators and investors for scale-ups.

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Deliverables of the initiative will be presented at upcoming high-level events, such as the Internet Governance Forum in Oslo/Lillestrøm, the AI4Good Summit in Geneva and at the UNGA-80 in New York. Insights of the initiative’s research groups may also inform multilateral AI Governance processes, such as the planned Independent International Scientific Panel on AI and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance as follow-up mechanisms for the Global Digital Compact. PI-AI-I also aims to enable project collaborations with the International Network of AI Safety Institutes in order to strengthen the human-rights and public-interest perspective in AI safety research and model testing, and discuss models for AI safety research in the Global South by building on the rich existing regional work on regulatory sandboxes.

To express your interest to join and reach out for inquiries, please contact us via the contact form.

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More information coming soon.