Artificial Intelligence Framework for an Equitable World

Artificial intelligence technologies have been in the news for some time, often with sensational stories of incredible promises, disastrous impact, or even world-ending doom. In 2023, NTEN and our partners at Institute For the Future began a community process to convene dozens of people from diverse nonprofit missions, foundations, technology companies, and nonprofit advisors. Through this community process, we surfaced a few key points:

1. Everyone, regardless of their role or organization mission, has the responsibility to understand the impacts and potential harms if building or using AI tools.
2. Real harm comes from how AI technologies are currently built and applied to our missions, which we need to understand and be accountable for.
3. Contemplating the creation or use of AI tools is complex, and we benefit from taking complex approaches to those considerations.

These key points and many questions, ideas, and challenges that surfaced through our community process led NTEN and IFTF to create the AI Framework for an Equitable World. This framework is a guide and tool for surfacing questions, identifying areas of evaluation or investigation, and embedding equity and transparency values into every AI-related project.

What's your experience with AI? Do you have questions about the framework or your own resources to share? Join the open conversation in the NTEN General Discussion online group.

Thank you to our supporting partners at Microsoft and Okta and to all the community members and expert practitioners who contributed your ideas, experience, and challenges to this process.

There's even more to come: We will soon publish additional resources and template policies, which will be available on this page.

Thank you to the many contributors to this project, including: