UnBias AI for Decision Makers

"Quite frankly this is the best bit of communication in this area I have ever seen.
It is the perfect complement to the UnBias Fairness Toolkit. Together they can be adopted by any organisation in business, charity, education, healthcare etc etc.
Especially in the light of recent events I just wish that every member of the Government and the Civil Service had a set! 
I know how difficult it is to refine the language so that it really gets through. You have done a superb job."

Lord Clement-Jones CBE
Chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2017–2018)

AI4DM is a suite of critical thinking tools enabling cross-organisational stakeholders to implement transdisciplinary ethical and governance assessments of planned or existing AI and automated decision-making systems.
It naturally fosters participation, bringing people together to map AI systems, existing and proposed, against the organisation's own mission, vision, values and ethics.
It uses a whole systems approach to analyse organisational structures and operations, illuminating to participants the breadth of issues beyond their individual responsibilities.

The tools are intuitive, practical and can be used for:

• revealing where and how a system is either in alignment, and where it is (or could be) misaligned with the organisation's mission, vision, values and ethics;
• enabling different stakeholders to appreciate where and how their obligations and responsibilities intersect with those of others. 
• emphasising the collective nature of lawful and ethical responsibilities across the whole organisation
• providing a mechanism for a deep analysis of complex challenges.

Watch our Animations on using the toolkit

What We Need & What You Get

Proboscis is fundraising to manufacture a print-run of at least 500 copies of the AI4DM Toolkit (card deck and handbook). This economy of scale will make the toolkit affordable for many (and much cheaper than ordering the deck only from our existing print-on-demand option). Included in the perk will be professionally printed copies of the handbook.

We are also offering the original UnBias Fairness Toolkit as a perk, including professionally printed copies of both its own Handbook and the Facilitator Booklet. This toolkit is designed to build awareness in young people and other non-experts of what algorithmic bias is and how it may be affecting them and their communities.

Furthermore, we are offering a Facilitation Training Package of one-to-one online video training sessions with Giles Lane, the creator/designer of both the UnBias Fairness and the AI4DM Toolkits. Two sessions each to plan and evaluate using the AI4DM toolkit, as well as to advise on combining it with the Fairness toolkit. A personalised "AI4DM Facilitator's Guide" will only be available to backers of this perk.

Read the AI4DM Handbook online

Test the Toolkit Now

The AI4DM and UnBias Fairness toolkits are already available in free DIY downloadable versions for you to print at home using standard office stationery. 

In 2018/19 over 650 manufactured sets of the Fairness toolkit were printed and distributed – these have been used extensively in education and community settings and widely praised.  By raising funds to manufacture a similar number of the AI4DM toolkit we hope to deliver a similar pragmatic and practical impact on the increasing use of AI and automated decision making systems – giving both public and private organisations an immediately useful framework.

Risks & Challenges

The toolkits and additional materials (handbooks and facilitator's guides etc) are all production-ready: DIY print-at-home versions are already available for those who wish to try them out.

If we do not reach our goal, we will use the funds collected to print as many card sets as we can afford. The Handbooks will remain accessible as online and downloadable versions on bookleteer.com (Proboscis' unique self-publishing platform). Backers of the training perk will also receive their sessions.

Our key risk is not reaching our goal to achieve the economy of scale that a run of 500 will bring. Given the previous success of (and continuing demand for) the manufactured version of the UnBias Fairness Toolkit, we are confident that enough demand will emerge for the AI4DM toolkit.

Conversely, should the campaign be more successful than anticipated, we will face a challenge in delivering a larger number of perks within the timeframe (we are a very small team working from home), however we will endeavour to fulfil all perks as quickly as possible.

About Us

Proboscis is a non-profit, artist-led creative studio based in London, UK since 1994. We have created multiple pioneering and ground-breaking projects that fuse social and cultural issues with emerging and traditional technologies. Our collaborations with research partners span many universities in the UK and abroad, and we also work closely with grassroots communities, industry, civil society and public sector organisations.

In 2018 we launched the UnBias Fairness Toolkit to promote awareness of bias, trust and fairness in algorithmic and automated decision making systems. It was designed for non-experts (i.e. the general public) to get to grips with the nature of bias and how it may affect them. It was part of the larger UnBias research project funded by the EPSRC and led by the Horizon Institute at the University of Nottingham with the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh and Proboscis.

In 2020 we were invited by Ansgar Koene (a Senior Research Fellow at Horizon and Global AI Ethics and Regulation Lead for EY Global Services) to develop a companion toolkit on ethics and governance for those in public and private organisations who are planning, developing, designing, deploying or evaluating Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning systems for automated decision making. AI4DM is the result.

Other Ways You Can Help

Not everyone can or feels comfortable contributing to campaigns like this. By making the free DIY versions immediately accessible we hope everyone who is interested in exploring and using it will be able to, and those who would like to have a professionally produced version will be able to support us.

• If you like and approve of the toolkit, do please help us get the word out – either on social media or otherwise by email or word of mouth. 
• If you prefer to make a smaller contribution we will be very grateful for any support.