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Society-Centered AI

Overview

How can AI truly benefit society? Rapid advancement of AI has the transformative potential to benefit society at a scale and speed that wasn’t possible before. Google has seen that building responsibility and maximizing AI's benefit requires a multi-stakeholder and multi-disciplinary approach that we call Society-Centered AI. The Society-Centered approach involves understanding societal needs and challenges facing diverse communities around the globe, developing useful technologies or innovations that are responsive to these needs together with the communities impacted, and measuring the success by the impact on those communities. Crucially, the approach involves collective efforts that bring together multiple stakeholder groups, often through direct partnership with organizations that can represent the perspectives and needs of impacted communities.

Society-Centered AI will fund research projects that promote the society-centered research approach to shape the positive outcomes of AI for a better future. We are seeking research proposals that advance AI applications relating to accessibility, health care, cultural production, upskilling, or other topics related to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Details

Application status

Applications are currently closed.

Decisions for the June 2024 application will be announced via email by October 2024. Please check back in Summer 2025 for details on future application cycles.

  • Applications open
  • Applications close
  • Notification of proposal decisions

Research topics

Proposals should specifically cover one or more of the following topics:

  • Applications of AI with beneficial impact to underserved communities and/or that address societal-level challenges (e.g., applications to improve healthcare reach for underserved communities; upskilling for reemployment)

  • Methods, tools and frameworks to promote stakeholder participation and alignment of AI to societal and/or community-specific needs (e.g., participatory AI or data governance frameworks; pluralistic AI alignment approaches; approaches for evaluating/mitigating AI harms)

  • Studies of the touchpoints and integrations of AI and society (e.g., studies of current or emerging societal, economic, or cultural impacts of AI; studies of awareness, adoption, and attitudes towards AI)

Award details

Award amounts vary by topic up to $100K USD and are intended to support the advancement of the professor’s research during the academic year in which the award is provided. Additional cloud credits can be requested.

Funds will be disbursed as unrestricted gifts to the university and are not intended for overhead or indirect costs.

Requirements

Eligibility

  • Open to professors (assistant, associate, etc.) at a university or degree-granting research institution.

  • Applicants may only serve as Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI on one proposal per round. There can be a maximum of 2 PIs per proposal.

  • Proposals must be related to computing or technology.

In addition to the guidance provided in our FAQ section, proposals should consider the following:

  • A well articulated research problem statement

  • Detailed description of the approach and methodology, including a description of the partnership/collaboration model with stakeholder group(s)

  • Articulate the multi-disciplinary perspectives of the research team (where appropriate, we encourage PI and co-PI to have different disciplinary backgrounds)

  • Expected impact clearly articulated

Review criteria

  • Faculty merit: Faculty is accomplished in research, community engagement, and open source contributions, with potential to contribute to responsible innovation.

  • Research merit: Faculty's proposed research is aligned with Google Research interests, innovative, and likely to have a significant impact on the field.

  • Proposal quality: The research proposal is clear, focused, and well-organized, and it demonstrates the team's ability to successfully execute the research and achieve a significant impact.

FAQs

Listed on GARA landing page.