ReDDDoT Phase 2: The Digital Governance Design Project

This project supports the Digital Governance Design Clinic, which is an interdisciplinary education model that gives doctors and lawyers practical experience designing and governing the technologies shaping their industries. Duty bearing professionals are important sources of technical expertise for their communities and technology companies - and, more importantly, they are also the way many of the most vulnerable communities engage with powerful systems.

This model aligns with the National Science Foundation’s mission to promote the progress of science in ways that advance national health, prosperity and welfare by establishing governance models that support our highest-integrity professions in leading the design and deployment of our highest-impact technologies. The Digital Governance Design Clinic Project is designed to bridge two critical gaps for duty-bearing professionals in the fields of law and medicine, gaps that currently exist in the context of the design, development, and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI).

The project focuses on: (1) fostering an applied, critical, substantive understanding of the role of technology in their work; and (2) co-developing frameworks for strategically and tactically leveraging the collective action and governance mechanisms that shape professional technology standards - especially on behalf of marginalized communities.

The Digital Governance Design Clinic project will pilot an applied education model in two professional schools - the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law at Arizona State University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The Clinic is a combined course and applied experience infrastructure, designed to teach practitioners how to articulate their needs and values in the design of AI, how to specify and negotiate for its appropriate development, and how to ensure that it realizes the intended goals in deployment.

The clinical program will pair students with professional governance institutions, a technology provider developing relevant tools, or a service provider exploring how to use AI. In each case, students will develop research and practice-based materials designed to create short-term value, map the governance footprint of the issue they’re working on, and take concrete steps toward advancing the governance of AI within their area of practice.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.