// The report
For those who are heads-down building a more responsible tech future, the report provides a state-of-the-sector update and forest-through-the-trees analysis of where the responsible tech ecosystem is today and what it needs in its next chapter.
Throughout six months in 2023, Project Liberty Institute and Aspen Digital convened over 150 leaders across five continents—from governments, international organizations, tech companies, investors, technologists, academics, and civil society groups—for a series of in-person group discussions all over the world.
Fehlinger noted, “There is a lot of amazing work that others have already done in this space, and this report builds upon that foundation.”
//
“If we don't create market conditions for the new responsible technology economy that we envision, it will not happen. We need to create incentives for technology in the public interest to scale.”
//
The results?
- Eleven actionable insights
- Seven trade-offs between principles and practice
- Three recommendations that shape a pathway to responsible tech innovation:
-
- Create a shared vision and common metrics. Establish a global panel on responsible technology innovation.
- Create market incentives for a digital economy in the common interest. Create frameworks for investment in responsible tech.
- Advance public interest technology and infrastructure. Create conditions for public interest tech to scale competitively.
// Takeaways
Fehlinger shared three core takeaways that offer additional perspective to the report’s findings:
1. It is still early days: Zooming out, Fehlinger believes that we are still early in our collective understanding of the unintended consequences and negative externalities stemming from social media, AI, and other tech platforms. For many deep in this work, the problems might be obvious and myriad, but awareness about the unintended consequences wasn’t nearly as widespread even one decade ago as it is today (Project Liberty’s recent Insights reports have revealed global public sentiments on social media, AI, and the threat of misinformation in the 2024 US elections).
2. We don’t know what we’re optimizing for: The facilitated conversations revealed that the responsible tech ecosystem is missing clear north-star metrics to aim toward. “The tech space, broadly, doesn’t know what to optimize for beyond financial returns,” Fehlinger said. In the responsible tech space, Fehlinger found widespread alignment amongst leaders that we must demand more from technology than merely minimizing harm. Rather, there needs to be a proactive, constructive vision of tech innovation that advances human dignity and shared prosperity. Fehlinger heard from key stakeholders that the vision is multidimensional: ranging from mental health to the health of democracies, and from productivity and employment to ethics and bias. On one hand, he conceded, this makes it more difficult to build focus and alignment around what’s most important. On the other, the diversity of viewpoints reflects the inclusive approach the responsible tech ecosystem is taking.
3. We need to move from principles to incentives: The report found that “we have a panoply of principles, a paucity of implementation, and an urgent need to act.” What stood out to Fehlinger was that experts were impatient to move from simply aligning around principles to influencing incentives that shape market conditions—like new regulations and incentives for capital allocation. The EU’s suite of tech regulations offers one example of how Europe is using government policy to shape incentives and innovation. But moving the ecosystem requires a comprehensive approach: “If we don't create market conditions for the new responsible technology economy that we envision, it will not happen,” he said. “We need to create incentives for technology in the public interest to scale.”
// The way forward
One of the report’s three recommendations is to create a Global Panel on Responsible Technology Innovation. Such a panel could have a similar mandate to what the IPCC is for climate change.
The IPCC is instrumental in the fight against climate change, but it’s not a comprehensive solution in and of itself. While it shines a spotlight on the data, legitimizes the scientific research, and makes recommendations, it will take new technologies, new economic incentives, new regulations, and new partnerships to make meaningful climate progress.
The same is true in the responsible tech space. Project Liberty is already working to implement the three recommendations from the report.
- To advance a shared vision and common metrics, Project Liberty supports cutting-edge research on responsible innovation at academic institutions like Georgetown, Sciences Po, Stanford, Harvard, and MIT.
- To advance responsible technology investment, Project Liberty launched a transatlantic process for limited partners to support the development of responsible investment frameworks for data and AI technologies, in partnership with Omidyar Network and VentureESG.
- To scale public interest infrastructure and tech, Project Liberty is stewarding DSNP and advancing insights in new business models for a better data economy.
Fehlinger hopes the report will spark sector-wide conversations and actions needed to redesign how tech innovation is done.
This is the work of ecosystem builders like Aspen Digital and Project Liberty: creating the conditions where change is not just possible, but inevitable.
Aspen Digital’s Executive Director Vivian Schiller said, “The insights and recommendations in the report aim for a future by and for all, where technology serves humanity and advances a shared prosperity. It takes all of us.”
Read the full report here.
