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Societal Context Understanding Tools & Solutions (SCOUTS)
<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>Societal Context Understanding Tools & Solutions (SCOUTS)</title> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> <meta charset="utf-8"> <style data-tag="reset-style-sheet"> html { line-height: 1.15;}body { margin: 0;}* { box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0; border-style: solid;}p,li,ul,pre,div,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,figure,blockquote,figcaption { margin: 0; padding: 0;}button { background-color: transparent;}button,input,optgroup,select,textarea { font-family: inherit; font-size: 100%; line-height: 1.15; margin: 0;}button,select { text-transform: none;}button,[type="button"],[type="reset"],[type="submit"] { -webkit-appearance: button;}button::-moz-focus-inner,[type="button"]::-moz-focus-inner,[type="reset"]::-moz-focus-inner,[type="submit"]::-moz-focus-inner { border-style: none; padding: 0;}button:-moz-focus,[type="button"]:-moz-focus,[type="reset"]:-moz-focus,[type="submit"]:-moz-focus { outline: 1px dotted ButtonText;}a { color: inherit; text-decoration: inherit;}input { padding: 2px 4px;}img { display: block;}html { scroll-behavior: smooth } </style> <style data-tag="default-style-sheet"> html { font-family: Inter; font-size: 16px; } body { font-weight: 400; font-style:normal; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.15; color: var(--dl-color-gray-black); background-color: var(--dl-color-gray-white); } </style> <link rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" href="images/favicon.ico"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Inter:wght@100;200;300;400;500;600;700;800;900&display=swap" data-tag="font"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Roboto:ital,wght@0,100;0,300;0,400;0,500;0,700;0,900;1,100;1,300;1,400;1,500;1,700;1,900&display=swap" data-tag="font"> <!-- Google tag (gtag.js) --> <script async="" src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-E1X4453T82"></script> <script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-E1X4453T82'); </script> </head> <body> <div> <link href="./css/home.css" rel="stylesheet"> <div class="container"> <div class="landing-page"> <div class="header"> <div class="logo-text"><img src="images/scouts_logo.png" alt="SCOUTS logo" class="scouts-logo"> <span class="text"><span>SCOUTS</span></span></div> <div class="nav-items"><span class="nav-item"> <a href="#our-work" target="">OUR WORK</a> </span> <span class="nav-item"> <a href="#our-research" target="">OUR RESEARCH</a> </span> </div> </div> <div class="hero-mission-section"> <div class="body-text"> <span class="hero-mission-section-header"> <span> <span>Societal Context Knowledge</span> <br> <span>for Responsible AI</span> </span> </span> <span class="hero-mission-section-primary-text"> <p> Societal Context Understanding Tools and Solutions (SCOUTS) is a Google Research initiative with the mission to empower people with the scalable, trustworthy societal context knowledge required to realize responsible, robust AI and solve the world's most complex societal problems. </p> </span> <span class="hero-mission-section-secondary-text"> <span> <p>Our mission is based on a very simple premise that, in order to respect cultural, social and legal norms and mitigate harmful societal biases and unjust impacts, we must know what those biases, norms and impacts are. We strive to make societal context knowledge useful and accessible to people and ML systems.</p> <br> </span> </span> </div> <div class="body-img"> <img src="images/mission-image.png" alt="SCOUTS mission image" class="mission-image"> </div> </div> <div id="our-work" class="our-work-section"> <div class="our-work-header"> <span>Our work</span> </div> <div class="blog-content"> <div class="blog-item"> <div class="blog-card-elevated"> <div class="blog-card-statelayer"> </div> </div> <div class="blog-card-contentcontainer"> <div class="blog-media-textcontent"> <div class="blog-media"> <img src="images/scouts_explainer.png" alt="SCOUTS Explainer" class="blog-media-image"> </div> <div class="blog-title-textcontent"> <div class="blog-title-headline"> <span class="blog-title-headline-text m3titlelarge"> <span>SCOUTS Explainer Video</span> </span> <span class="blog-title-headline-authors m3bodymedium"> <span>by SCOUTS Team</span> </span> </div> <span class="blog-title-subtext m3bodymedium"> <span> AI presents an amazing opportunity to improve the lives of everyone, but it can also be very harmful if AI-based products are not designed to proactively avoid negative societal impact... </span> </span> <div class="blog-actions"> <button class="blog-button"> <div class="blog-button-statelayer"> <span class="blog-button-text m3labellarge"> <a href="https://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/scouts_explainer_external-final.mp4" target="_blank">Learn more</a> </span> </div> </button> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-item"> <div class="blog-card-elevated"> <div class="blog-card-statelayer"> </div> </div> <div class="blog-card-contentcontainer"> <div class="blog-media-textcontent"> <div class="blog-media"> <img src="images/rai_blog.png" alt="RAI blog image" class="blog-media-image"> </div> <div class="blog-title-textcontent"> <div class="blog-title-headline"> <span class="blog-title-headline-text m3titlelarge"> <span> Using societal context knowledge to foster RAI </span> </span> <span class="blog-title-headline-authors m3bodymedium"> <span>by Donald Martin, Jr.</span> </span> </div> <span class="blog-title-subtext m3bodymedium"> <span> AI-related products and technologies are constructed and deployed in a societal context: that is, a dynamic and complex collection of social, cultural, historical, political... </span> </span> <div class="blog-actions"> <button class="blog-button"> <div class="blog-button-statelayer"> <span class="blog-button-text m3labellarge"> <a href="https://blog.research.google/2023/07/using-societal-context-knowledge-to.html" target="_blank">Learn more</a> </span> </div> </button> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-item"> <div class="blog-card-elevated"> <div class="blog-card-statelayer"> </div> </div> <div class="blog-card-contentcontainer"> <div class="blog-media-textcontent"> <div class="blog-media"> <img src="images/slmath_talk.png" alt="SLMath Talk image" class="blog-media-image"> </div> <div class="blog-title-textcontent"> <div class="blog-title-headline"> <span class="blog-title-headline-text m3titlelarge"> <span> Epistemic Uncertainity, the AI Problem Understanding Gap </span> </span> <span class="blog-title-headline-authors m3bodymedium"> <span>by Donald Martin, Jr.</span> </span> </div> <span class="blog-title-subtext m3bodymedium"> <span> The application of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) in high-stakes domains, such as healthcare, presents both opportunities and risks... </span> </span> <div class="blog-actions"> <button class="blog-button"> <div class="blog-button-statelayer"> <span class="blog-button-text m3labellarge"> <a href="https://www.slmath.org/workshops/1051/schedules/34377" target="_blank">Learn more</a> </span> </div> </button> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-item"> <div class="blog-card-elevated"> <div class="blog-card-statelayer"> </div> </div> <div class="blog-card-contentcontainer"> <div class="blog-media-textcontent"> <div class="blog-media"> <img src="images/jigsaw_2022_blog.png" alt="Jigsaw Blog image" class="blog-media-image"> </div> <div class="blog-title-textcontent"> <div class="blog-title-headline"> <span class="blog-title-headline-text m3titlelarge"> <span> Scaling machine learning fairness with societal context </span> </span> <span class="blog-title-headline-authors m3bodymedium"> <span>by Rachel Rosen, Alyssa Chvasta, Lucy Vasserman, Sameer Sethi, Emmanuel Klu, Donald Martin</span> </span> </div> <span class="blog-title-subtext m3bodymedium"> <span> How <a href="https://jigsaw.google.com/" target="_blank">Jigsaw</a> partnered with SCOUTS to reduce unintended bias and improve fairness of the <a href="https://www.perspectiveapi.com/" target="_blank">Perspective API</a> models... </span> </span> <div class="blog-actions"> <button class="blog-button"> <div class="blog-button-statelayer"> <span class="blog-button-text m3labellarge"> <a href="https://medium.com/@JigsawTeam/scaling-machine-learning-fairness-with-societal-context-be73d4ad38e2" target="_blank">Learn more</a> </span> </div> </button> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-item"> <div class="blog-card-elevated"> <div class="blog-card-statelayer"> </div> </div> <div class="blog-card-contentcontainer"> <div class="blog-media-textcontent"> <div class="blog-media"> <img src="images/hbr_blog.png" alt="HBR blog image" class="blog-media-image"> </div> <div class="blog-title-textcontent"> <div class="blog-title-headline"> <span class="blog-title-headline-text m3titlelarge"> <span> AI Engineers Need to Think Beyond Engineering </span> </span> <span class="blog-title-headline-authors m3bodymedium"> <span>by Donald Martin, Jr. and Andrew Moore</span> </span> </div> <span class="blog-title-subtext m3bodymedium"> <span> It is very, very easy for a well-intentioned AI practitioner to inadvertently do harm when they set out to do good - AI has the power to amplify... </span> </span> <div class="blog-actions"> <button class="blog-button"> <div class="blog-button-statelayer"> <span class="blog-button-text m3labellarge"> <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/10/ai-engineers-need-to-think-beyond-engineering" target="_blank">Learn more</a> </span> </div> </button> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-item"> <div class="blog-card-elevated"> <div class="blog-card-statelayer"> </div> </div> <div class="blog-card-contentcontainer"> <div class="blog-media-textcontent"> <div class="blog-media"> <img src="images/pair_blog.png" alt="PAIR Blog" class="blog-media-image"> </div> <div class="blog-title-textcontent"> <div class="blog-title-headline"> <span class="blog-title-headline-text m3titlelarge"> <span> Community Based System Dynamics and Machine Learning </span> </span> <span class="blog-title-headline-authors m3bodymedium"> <span> Q&A: Donald Martin, Jr. by People + AI Research </span> </span> </div> <span class="blog-title-subtext m3bodymedium"> <span> Q&A with Donald Martin, Jr. to talk about community based system dynamics and how - when it comes to designing technology - partnering with communities early can help... </span> </span> <div class="blog-actions"> <button class="blog-button"> <div class="blog-button-statelayer"> <span class="blog-button-text m3labellarge"> <a href="https://medium.com/people-ai-research/q-a-donald-martin-on-community-based-system-dynamics-and-machine-learning-3fa21e42c680" target="_blank">Learn more</a> </span> </div> </button> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="blog-item"> <div class="blog-card-elevated"> <div class="blog-card-statelayer"> </div> </div> <div class="blog-card-contentcontainer"> <div class="blog-media-textcontent"> <div class="blog-media"> <img src="images/db4l_blog.png" alt="DB4L Blog" class="blog-media-image"> </div> <div class="blog-title-textcontent"> <div class="blog-title-headline"> <span class="blog-title-headline-text m3titlelarge"> <span> Exploring System Dynamics, inclusive ML and societal impact </span> </span> <span class="blog-title-headline-authors m3bodymedium"> <span> Q&A: Donald & Jamaal by Annie Jean-Baptiste </span> </span> </div> <span class="blog-title-subtext m3bodymedium"> <span> Q&A with Donald and Jamaal about a workshop on System Dynamics and the wealth gap that Google sponsored at 2019 Data for Black Lives (D4BL) conference... </span> </span> <div class="blog-actions"> <button class="blog-button"> <div class="blog-button-statelayer"> <span class="blog-button-text m3labellarge"> <a href="https://accelerate.withgoogle.com/stories/exploring-systems-dynamics-inclusive-ml-and-societal-impact-meet-googlers-donald-martin-and-jamaal-sebastian-barnes" target="_blank">Learn more</a> </span> </div> </button> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div id="our-research" class="our-research-section"> <span class="our-research-title"> <span>Our research</span> </span> <div class="paper-content"> <span class="research-paper-title"> <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.04027" target="_blank"> TIDE: Textual Identity Detection for Evaluating and Augmenting Classification and Language Models </a> </span> <span class="research-paper-authors"> <span> Emmanuel Klu and Sameer Sethi </span> </span> </div> <div class="paper-content"> <span class="research-paper-title"> <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.12494" target="_blank"> SDGym: Low-Code Reinforcement Learning Environments using System Dynamics Models </a> </span> <span class="research-paper-authors"> <span> Emmanuel Klu, Sameer Sethi, DJ Passey, Donald Martin Jr </span> </span> </div> <div class="paper-content"> <span class="research-paper-title"> <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.10211" target="_blank"> Causal Theories and Structural Data Representations for Improving Out-of-Distribution Classification </a> </span> <span class="research-paper-authors"> <span> Donald Martin Jr and David Kinney </span> </span> </div> <div class="paper-content"> <span class="research-paper-title"> <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.09663" target="_blank"> Extending the Machine Learning Abstraction Boundary: A Complex Systems Approach to Incoporate Societal Context </a> </span> <span class="research-paper-authors"> <span> Donald Martin Jr., Vinodkumar Prabhakaran, Jill Kuhlberg, Andrew Smart, William S. Isaac </span> </span> </div> <div class="paper-content"> <span class="research-paper-title"> <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.07572" target="_blank"> Participatory Problem Formulation for Fairer Machine Learning Through Community Based System Dynamics </a> </span> <span class="research-paper-authors"> <span> Donald Martin Jr., Vinodkumar Prabhakaran, Jill Kuhlberg, Andrew Smart, William S. Isaac </span> </span> </div> <div class="paper-content"> <span class="research-paper-title"> <a href="https://research.google/pubs/pub51688/" target="_blank"> Leveraging CBSD to Advance Community Engaged Approaches to Identifying Structural Drivers of Racial Bias in Health Diagnostic Algorithms </a> </span> <span class="research-paper-authors"> <span> Jill Kuhlberg, Irene Headen, Ellis Ballard, Donald Martin Jr. </span> </span> </div> <div class="paper-content"> <span class="research-paper-title"> <a href="https://research.google/pubs/pub51597/" target="_blank"> Participatory Machine Learning using Community Based System Dynamics </a> </span> <span class="research-paper-authors"> <span>Vinodkumar Prabhakaran, Donald Martin Jr.</span> </span> </div> </div> <div class="footer"> <a href="https://www.google.com" target="_blank"> <img src="images/google_logo.svg" alt="Google logo" class="googlelogo"> </a> <a href="https://research.google" target="_blank"> <img src="images/google_research_logo.svg" alt="Google Research logo" class="googleresearchlogo"> </a> <div class="footer__links"> <a title="Privacy" class="footer__link" href="https://policies.google.com/privacy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Privacy</a> <a title="Terms" class="footer__link" href="https://policies.google.com/terms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Terms</a> </div> </div> </div> </div> <script data-autoload-cookie-consent-bar="true" data-autoload-cookie-consent-bar-intl-code="" src="https://www.gstatic.com/brandstudio/kato/cookie_choice_component/cookie_consent_bar.v3.js"> </script> </body> </html>