Google Funds Leading Civil Rights Group’s New AI Policy Center
(Bloomberg) -- Alphabet Inc.’s Google is funding a new center focused on crafting artificial intelligence policy at the country’s largest civil rights organization, which wants to ensure racial equity policies are built into the technology.
Most Read from Bloomberg
What If Putin Wins? US Allies Fear Defeat as Ukraine Aid Stalls
Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Sentenced to Four Years for Fraud
Google and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights confirmed to Bloomberg News that Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, provided funding for the September launch of its “Center for Civil Rights and Technology,” alongside other technology companies and private foundations.
Google.org contributes to a range of organizations “that are working to advance important research on AI and topics like bias, equity, the future of work, and more,” said Google spokesman Michael Appel in response to Bloomberg queries.
He wouldn’t specify the amount Google gave to the center, but said it was part of an initial $20 million Google.org grant to fund AI policy initiatives.
The Leadership Conference, a coalition of 230 groups, launched the center with great fanfare Sept. 7, calling it the “first of its kind” research and advocacy center focused on tech and AI in the civil rights landscape. Google’s funding wasn’t disclosed at the time.
The explosive advancement of AI has sparked an existential divide between those who believe the technology could destroy humanity and those who believe it is the pinnacle of innovation. AI has become a cutting-edge policy issue that has confounded governments around the world as policymakers struggle to shape rules that protect people — including communities of color — without thwarting its potentially transformative uses.
Google, which was caught flat-footed by the rise of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, is working quickly to line up allies to support its own AI policy agenda. Google’s decision to give money to the Leadership Conference shows how the company is working to ingratiate itself with key groups that could eventually help the tech industry in coming policy debates.
The civil rights community is a vital constituency, particularly in Washington under President Joe Biden, who has issued a sweeping executive order that establishes standards for AI security and privacy protections. The Leadership Conference hopes to help influence those policies as well as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s plans to propose legislation to create guardrails around AI.
Racial Stereotypes
Many AI products have been shown to disproportionately harm people of color, such as facial recognition technology that misrecognizes darker-skinned people, image generators that reproduce racial and ethnic stereotypes, or hiring websites that allegedly filter out Black, disabled or older workers.
Leadership Conference CEO Maya Wiley said the center plans to focus on advocating for AI legislation and regulation that protects communities of color, as well as educating civil rights groups on how AI will impact their work.
The goal is to ensure technology is “advancing equity, not reversing it,” Wiley said in an interview. “If it’s not safe, if it discriminates, if it harms, it’s not innovation.”
Wiley said the center’s work will be independent from Google. The Leadership Conference has received Google funding for years, and has continued to speak out against the tech giant over misinformation policies among other issues.
The conversation around AI technology in Washington has been dominated by the largest companies – their armies of lobbyists, executives and lawyers, along with the outside groups they fund. Some critics say corporate influence over the debate risks creating policies that don’t protect, or even harm, individuals impacted by the technology.
“Using civil rights communities that are really passionate about their work and are also always looking for funding is a way to lock them in without looking like they are trying to influence,” said Katie Paul, the director of the Tech Transparency Project, an advocacy group that tracks tech lobbying in Washington.
The new center’s staff also has ties to Google. Vice President Koustubh “K.J.” Bagchi was most recently a top executive at tech trade group Chamber of Progress. Google is a major funder of that group, alongside Meta Platforms Inc., Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc and other tech companies.
The center’s senior adviser is Alondra Nelson, who previously served as acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Appel, the Google spokesperson, said Google.org doesn’t weigh in on the work of its grantees. “They decide who to hire and the course of their work,” he said.
Google.org’s AI grant also went to nonprofits including think tanks R Street Institute and Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Institute for Security and Technology, according to a blogpost from Google.org.
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
