INSO pilot project call

INTELLIGENT SOCIETY (INSO)
PILOT PROJECTS CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The Intelligent Society Platform, (INSO) is an Academy of Finland funded (2019-23, 2 M€) profiling action that seeks to strengthen cooperation on the TAU strategy axis “society” – “technology”. The aim is to contribute to the development of sustainable and equal, or intelligent society through interdisciplinary cooperation. INSO will identify opportunities and challenges of Artificial Intelligence in societal development. During spring 2019, INSO has been running a series of workshops for researchers in social and technological sciences to identify research topics and questions that are meaningful from the perspective of both disciplines.

INSO now launches a call for pilot project proposals.

The proposals are deemed to satisfy the following conditions:

- the pilot project focuses on a clearly articulated societal need or challenge
- the pilot project seeks to express the societal need as a set of clear technological objectives
so that the intended societal impact is achieved without unwanted adverse effects
- alternatively, the pilot project may analyze an existing technical solution achieving to meet a
societal need: to what extent the intended impact was achieved and which unwanted
adverse effects were encountered and why
- the research group is balanced (social and technological sciences)

The pilot projects are expected to tackle at least three of the following questions in the context of the identified societal need:

1. What are the most positive results of the service?
2. What is the dystopia of this service?
3. Which are the inherent societal / ethical / political / technological premises?
4. Which tensions and contradictions are there between the premises and societal needs?
5. How the implementation and use of the system is to be controlled for accurate address on
societal need and high-quality technological implementation?
6. What are the key actors, and in which roles, when implementing and operating the AI
solution?
7. Which alternative technological solutions exist for this societal need or challenge? What are
the criteria to choose between them?
8. What kind of ethical/societal/political data selection and preprocessing issues are raised?
9. How to translate the societal need to a technological objective guiding the implementation
process?
10. Which are the impacts of system uncertainties?

From technological perspective, the pilot projects are problem DEFINITION tasks, NOT problem SOLVING ones.

The pilot projects are NOT EXPECTED to implement an AI solution to meet the identified societal need. The pilot projects ARE EXPECTED to produce the logics (premises and operational principles) from the societal need to end use requirements (in technological sense). In addition, the pilot
projects MAY produce alternative logics to illustrate the risks of adverse impacts if the problem definition omits setting constraints on the technological implementation process.

The pilot projects are expected to run approximately Oct 1, 2019 – March 31, 2020 and their full cost budget is expected to be € 25.000 - € 50.000. In total, a purse of € 200.000 will be allocated to this call. The INSO process will continue by opening a new call for larger initiatives during the Autumn 2019.

The pilot project proposals should be written in accordance with the following instructions:
- the definition of the societal need addressed (max 1⁄2 page)
- the questions primarily targeted and some initial thoughts on these (max 1 page)
- the participants and their background from the perspective of the societal need or challenge
/technology to be applied (max 1 page)
- deliverable(s) and schedule
- budget (with half of the costs allocated to year 2019)

The proposal must not exceed 3 pages.

The proposals should be sent to Tuomas Lammi (tuomas.lammi@tuni.fi) no later than Aug. 14, 2019.

Tampere, May 31, 2019
INSO board