IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2021 - 15

the research took a broad view of the definition of
technology innovation, and its trust thinking is applicable
to a broad spectrum of technologies. A helicopter
review of trust issues considered by various
branches of psychology, evolutionary psychology,
neuroscience, behavioral and risk sciences, sociology,
and science and technology studies informed
an iterative series of consultations and cocreation
sessions with a range of over 100 stakeholders from
academia, business, civil society, and public sector.
The findings of the TIGTech project-shared in
this article-explore how governance design may
change if trust were considered important to its
design and delivery, identifying seven drivers of trust
and their relevance to tech governance, and how the
changing governance landscape makes them of particular
importance. It also uncovered three potential
new competencies needed to help technology governance,
particularly AI soft law, to earn trust.
Seven drivers of trust for emerging
tech governance
For now, soft law approaches lack the capacity
for assertive enforcement. To gain legitimacy, we
propose that these AI soft law efforts mark an opportunity
to make a fundamental shift (as PA Consulting
puts it), from being " watchdogs of industry to champions
of the public " [1]. AI soft law could take an
even more assertive, communicative, and collaborative
role in the development of AI technologies to
underpin and act as a precursor to more traditional
regulation.
There are many useful and important attempts
within AI soft law to grapple with the issues arising
from the use of the technologies, particularly those
of an ethical nature [3]. But these technologies are
increasingly deployed across sectors and in the daily
lives of citizens, so initiatives and organizations simply
thinking about ethics may no longer be sufficient
to demonstrate and earn trust.
Fundamentally, this will require a clearer focus
on the public interest in technology application and
governance and a more collaborative approach with
all stakeholders, including citizens, to meet society's
expectations of what trustworthy governance is and
does. It necessitates being open and intentional
about the processes in which these soft laws are created-who
is involved, how, and to what end; what
are they aiming to protect or drive toward, and then
communicating about their effectiveness in action.
December 2021
In shifting the purpose of soft law governance
toward being a champion of the public, consciously
considering the earning of citizens trust, and building
an approach that is worthy of being trusted is a
useful place to start. The interdisciplinary approach
of the TIGTech initiative identified seven core drivers
of trust (see Figure 1). Trusted governance organizations
and processes display these qualities:
* Intent: Focus on the public interest-upheld
through purpose, process, delivery and
outcomes.
* Competence-delivering against expectation reliably,
consistently, responsively.
* Respect-seeing others as equals; listening to and
taking seriously their concerns, views, and rights.
Considering the impact of words and deeds on
others.
*
Integrity-operating honestly and being accountable;
impartial and independent of vested
interests.
* Inclusion-being collaborative, inclusive, involving
others.
* Openness-being transparent and accessible in
processes, communications, explanations, and
interactions.
* Fairness-enshrining justice and equality in governance
processes, application, enforcement, and
outcomes.
These seven trust drivers are deeply rooted in our
individual and collective psychology and the fundamental
ways our societies work and have evolved
[7]-[10]. The research made it very clear that these
are not just abstract concepts or academic theories,
but are fundamental to perceptions of trustworthiness.
They are familiar to the point of banality, which
is perhaps why their power can be underestimated.
In some form or other, these exist in most national
and international governance systems and organizational
values statements. Trusted organizations tend
to go beyond having them as simply high-level statements,
and they use these drivers as " guides to live
by " ; aligning decision-making, incentives, metrics,
and reward systems to underpin their importance.
It takes conscious commitment and effort to
embed these trust drivers into the design of governance
processes. They may be the foundation
on which trustworthy AI soft law can be built and
increase the likelihood of earning societal trust.
15
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2021

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