IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021 - 90

Feature
the numerous stakeholders, such as conservation
groups, landowners, scientists, government officials,
local businesses, and native populations. A method
like participatory action research or other participatory
design methods [71] could be used to facilitate
this engagement.
This process, which should be ongoing and iterative
throughout the management of the forest ecosystem,
should surface a number of clear concerns about possible
implications of the afforestation efforts. For example,
the company may have originally been optimizing
a target through their AI system such as SDG indicators
15.1.1, " Forest area as a proportion of total land area, "
or 15.3.1, " Proportion of land that is degraded over
total land area. " However, the impact assessment process
should lead to the flexible identification of new
indicators critical to having a broader understanding
of the relevant social, economic, and ecological context,
such as SDG indicators 3.3.5, " Number of people
requiring interventions against neglected tropical
diseases, " or 1.5.2, " Direct disaster economic loss in
relation to global gross domestic product. " These new
indicators would therefore operationalize possible
dimensions and impacts of the forest ecosystem management
effort such as diseases and natural disasters as
specific measurable indicators.
Finally, the company would have new ways to
apply their deeper understanding of the well-being
implications of their AI system. One such approach
could be embedding expert domain knowledge
garnered from the participatory process into the
architecture of the AI system itself [72]. For example,
an AI system that previously optimized carbon
sequestration potential as part of its objective function
could incorporate new data regarding tropical
diseases or natural disasters as additional constraints
or targets in the optimization of its model. Finally,
though the impact assessment process and identification
of solutions could initially feel unfamiliar and
complex, the company would gradually develop
best practices and guidance toward a more responsible
application of its AI system for forest ecosystem
restoration.
Though this case study-the use of AI for forest
ecosystem restoration-is based on real uses of
AI and associated real-world challenges, the specific
actions taken by the company and indicators
suggested are hypothetical, and the impact assessment
only responds to some of the possible challenges
faced. We do not mean to suggest that there
90
are not companies or governments already taking
thoughtful approaches to multistakeholder governance
in this area. However, to the best of the
authors' knowledge, current sustainability efforts
have not yet incorporated impact assessments of
AI-driven technological solutions applied to ecosystem
restoration. We hope this case study helps
to demonstrate how impact assessments are a
promising tool to close the principles-to-practices
gap toward responsible AI.
in this Article, we reviewed and synthesized
explanations for the gap between high-level responsible
AI principles and the capacity to implement
those principles in practice. These explanations are
neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive. Scholars
should continue to probe-conceptually and empirically-what
barriers stand in the way of responsible
AI practice within organizations. We suggest
this research agenda will benefit from collaboration
between computing, engineering, organizational,
business, and other scholars. As the AI community
moves forward in its ambitions to promote socially
responsible AI, attention to the nature of the principles-to-practices
gap can help guide the identification
of best practices and promising solutions such
as impact assessment.

 References
[1] J. Cowls et al., " Designing AI for social good: Seven
essential factors, " Social Sci. Res. Netw., Rochester,
NY, USA, SSRN Scholarly Paper 3388669, May 2019.
[2] A. Manjarres et al., " AI4Eq: for a true global village
not for global pillage, " in Proc. Eur. Conf. AI, Aug. 2020.
[Online]. Available: https://underline.io/events/24/
sessions/464/lecture/2212-ai4eq-for-a-true-globalvillage-not-for-global-pillage
[3]
S. Pitt et al. (Aug. 2020). No App Is an Island:
Collective Action and Sustainable Development GoalSensitive
Design. [Online]. Available: https://underline.
io/events/24/sessions/464/lecture/2215-no-app-is-anisland-collective-action-and-sustainable-developmentgoal-sensitive-design
[4]
A. Luccioni and Y. Bengio, " On the morality of artificial
intelligence [Commentary], " IEEE Technol. Soc. Mag.,
vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 16-25, Mar. 2020, doi: 10.1109/
MTS.2020.2967486.
[5] S. Shane and D. Wakabayashi, " `The business of war':
Google employees protest work for the Pentagon, "
New York Times, Apr. 2018.
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021

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