"Taking Stock at FAccT": Using Participatory Design to Co-Create a Vision for the Fairness, Accountability and Transparency Community

2026-04-17 · Source: Artificial Intelligence · Field: Science & Research — Research Methodology & Innovation, Social Sciences & Behavioral Studies, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning · Depth: Intermediate, quick

Summary

The ACM FAccT conference, a prominent forum for critically examining AI and ML technologies, recently undertook a large-scale participatory design (PD) process to shape its future governance. This initiative combined an in-person CRAFT session, an asynchronous Polis poll, and the synthesis of a governance-focused report for FAccT leadership. Participants actively contributed by authoring seed statements, adding new statements, and voting to reveal patterns of agreement, disagreement, and uncertainty. This effort marks one of the initial applications of PD within a venue dedicated to scrutinizing AI's societal impacts, creating a space for critical scholars to express concerns. The work also contributes to large-scale PD theory by demonstrating an effective co-design paradigm capable of scaling both temporally and epistemologically.

Key takeaway

For conference organizers or community leaders seeking to evolve their forum's governance, consider implementing a multi-modal participatory design process. This approach, integrating both synchronous and asynchronous input, can effectively gather diverse perspectives and foster a sense of shared ownership, ensuring the community's substantive agenda is genuinely shaped by its members. Your efforts will result in a more robust and representative future direction.

Key insights

Participatory design effectively shaped the future governance of the ACM FAccT conference.

Principles

• Co-creation enhances conference governance.
• Diverse input strengthens critical examination.

Method

A participatory design process combined in-person sessions, asynchronous polling, and report synthesis, allowing participants to author statements and vote to reveal consensus.

In practice

• Use Polis polls for asynchronous input.
• Organize CRAFT sessions for in-person co-design.

Topics

• ACM FAccT
• Participatory Design
• AI Societal Impact
• Conference Governance
• Critical AI Studies

Best for: AI Scientist, AI Ethicist, Research Scientist, Policy Maker

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Editorial summary, takeaway, and curation by AIssential. Original article published by Artificial Intelligence.