Background
Civil society plays a crucial role in ensuring that AI governance is inclusive, transparent, and accountable to the public interest. Regulatory Sandboxes offer a unique opportunity for civil society organizations (CSOs) to contribute to AI governance by scrutinizing risks, advocating for human rights protections, and ensuring that emerging technologies align with public values while guaranteeing that underserved and underrepresented communities’ perspectives are heard. Through fostering collaboration between regulators, companies, and civil society groups, sandboxes can serve as vital spaces for surfacing public concerns and integrating them into AI governance frameworks. One of the key advantages of engaging civil society in sandboxes is their ability to bring transparency into AI development processes, helping identify potential biases, ethical concerns, and unintended social consequences before technologies are widely deployed.
The Challenge
Despite this potential, civil society organizations are notably absent from most existing sandbox initiatives. Current sandbox frameworks have primarily been designed as tools for policymakers and industry collaboration, with limited mechanisms for meaningful civil society participation. This exclusion represents a significant gap in AI governance, as it overlooks the critical perspectives and oversight capacity that CSOs bring to technology development and deployment.
Session Objectives
This workshop provides a space for participants to deepen their understanding of sandboxes—what they are, how they work, and why they matter. It also aims to engage participants in discussions that address the current participation gap and explore pathways for more inclusive sandbox design.
The session is a collaboration between the Datasphere Initiative and CIPESA, and will be facilitated by: