Building The Race and AI Toolkit

If you are reading this, you have been asked to help contribute to, or test this Race and AI Toolkit. Thank you for taking up the mission!

Key facts

• This Toolkit will be available for free globally as an online resource, and will have other types of elements added, such as:
  • An interactive section similar to our Quiz which will focus on uncovering applications showing racial bias
  • A basic glossary explaining how we define key terms relating to AI, for example unconscious biases, proxy data 
  • A section on how AI is usually portrayed in images – with recurrent themes of white, male robots, and the impact this has
• It has been put together by volunteers at We and AI – a UK non-profit organisation
• The Toolkit is a pilot for a wider online resources hub covering a range of public interest topics in AI
• This resources hub will be used alongside We and AI’s Community Champion programme, which provides beginner level AI literacy training and support to student, grassroots and business Community Champions
• The next phase of testing with be carried out with these Champions, in order to get feedback on providing tailored information packages which are highly relevant and of interest to diverse communities
• We and AI have not received funding from any organisation or body; the project has been driven by individuals wishing to make the impact of AI on racial equity and equality better understood

We invite AI, ethics and civil society experts to help with the following:

Suggest a Resource to add to the Toolkit	Do you know any articles, videos, research papers, reports, podcasts or any other resources which explain a Topic well? This would be particularly useful for more up to date resources, ones in different formats from or different levels to the ones already in the Toolkit, ones which are more relevant to UK audiences. Please submit the resource and an accessible summary here. If you leave your name and your addition is used then we will add you to the list of contributors
Add “Actions you can take” to the Toolkit	In investigating the intersection of Race and AI, our users may wish to find out more. Our aim is for more people to be empowered to be involved in decisions about AI systems, from either a professional or grassroots perspective. Therefore we wish to recommend ways to get more involved in studying AI, increasing AI literacy, investigating AI Ethics, understanding legal or democratic rights, activism, advocacy, or digital rights. We would like to signpost activities, information and organisations which may be of interest to them. Do you know any actions which would help people either find out more about the Topic, get involved in learning, activism, community projects, civil society activity, research, or any other related activity? This would be particularly useful from a UK perspective.Please add suggestions for any relevant further reading, courses, organisations, causes etc. by emailing hello@weandai.org with the link and the subject line “Further Actions”.
Help us share this Toolkit with people in impacted communities	Do you know anyone from a UK grassroots community or relevant network who would be interested in testing this Toolkit? They can either take part in short piece of user research, or we can provide them with a grounding in AI and AI Ethics as part of our Community Champion Programme. You can either share our join link https://weandai.org/join/, or email humanresources@weandai.org for more details.
Review Area or Topic Summaries	Do you think we could explain our Topics (for example this Topic in Money, this one in Education), more simply or accurately? Our aim is for there to be no jargon, unnecessarily long words or complicated language. There should be no prior knowledge necessary in order to understand the description. You can also add a suggestion for a new Topic. For example, our Digital and Social Media Area needs a new topic on Deepfakes. To make suggestions please email hello@weandai.org with the subject line “Topic Review”.
Review Resource Summaries	Could you suggest the summary of the resource be more useful in telling you whether it is relevant, and describing it? Is this resource categorised properly, for example, if you found it as a “beginner” article, do you think it is accessible to someone with no prior AI, subject or business knowledge? Please comment and suggest edited text in the Comments section underneath each individual resource.
Make any other suggestions	Share any general thoughts on the Toolkit. Please email hello@weandai.org with general thoughts on the site. Please bear in mind we have a number of known issues while in testing stage, such as: Missing resources under certain categories. Some text spacing issues on landing pages. Topic summaries not displaying well on Area Pages.
Share this Toolkit with other expert testers	This is a collaborative project built by a diverse group of volunteers who wish to increase the diversity of voices involved in holding AI to account. Do you know anyone else who we should or could be asking to contribute to this resource? Please share our contact form with them or introduce us via email at hello@weandai.org.
Volunteer to help with the next sections	Would you like to help us build the accompanying glossary, quiz, and AI image section? Please email hello@weandai.org or fill out the contact form.