We are immensely grateful to the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation for this funding. The Centre for Data Futures has significant ambitions to ensure technology can enhance civic agency rather than undermine it. Our Data Empowerment Clinic and our research into LLMs' communication of unquantifiable uncertainty represent two strategic interventions targeting different points in data-reliant infrastructure's lifecycle, united by a core mission of bottom-up empowerment and democratizing technological understanding.
Professor Sylvie Delacroix, Director of the Centre for Data Futures
11 December 2024
Centre for Data Futures secures prestigious Patrick J. McGovern Foundation grant funding
Following a successful grant application, King’s Centre for Data Futures has been awarded philanthropic funding to establish a Data Empowerment Clinic and advance critical research into LLMs’ communication of non-quantifiable uncertainties.
The Centre for Data Futures at King's College London is the first-ever dedicated centre of interdisciplinary expertise to focus on designing and studying the effect of participatory infrastructure over the life of data-reliant tools: from the point of data generation, through data empowerment structures, all the way to interface design that incentivises long-term, collective participation.
This focus on participatory infrastructure reflects the following conviction: if we are to be the authors of a variety of socially sustainable, data-reliant futures, data needs to become a tool for bottom-up socio-economic and political empowerment. While data empowerment movements are gaining momentum across the world, today there is still a dire lack of education infrastructure and expertise to support such movement building.
To address this problem, the Centre has secured funding from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation to establish a ‘data empowerment clinic’. The clinic will support peer learning by enabling individuals and organisations interested in developing data empowerment structures to learn from each other (from large, established institutions to grassroots movements). The clinic will also raise awareness and train students across KCL, who will gain valuable ‘hands-on’ experience of data empowerment challenges.
Alongside its work on data empowerment, this funding will also support the centre’s groundbreaking research into the communication of non-quantifiable uncertainty by large language models (LLMs). This research addresses a significant gap in current AI development. Existing approaches predominantly focus on getting LLMs to communicate their output with some measure of reliability.
Excessive focus on quantitative estimates of reliability however risks concealing the significance of a range of objectives (and uncertainty types) that are less familiar to the technical experts working in this area. Whether it be fostering end-users’ curiosity or creating conversational space for genuine exchange across difference, the pertinence of this different set of objectives is tied to LLMs’ unique conversational abilities. They call for designing participatory interfaces that not only enable but incentivise long-term, critical engagement by communities of users.
The systems we build today will define the society we live in tomorrow. To ensure technology becomes a force for equity and empowerment, we must reimagine data as a resource for communities and individual agency, not just institutions. The Centre for Data Futures, under Professor Sylvie Delacroix's leadership, is advancing this vision — transforming how we design participatory infrastructure and equipping communities with the tools to navigate and shape the digital age. Their groundbreaking work on data empowerment and LLM transparency sets a new standard for how technology can deepen trust, foster justice, and build a future where everyone has a voice in the systems that govern their lives.
Vilas Dhar, President of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation
The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (PJMF) is a philanthropic organization dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence and data science solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. PJMF works in partnership with public, private, and social institutions to drive progress on our most pressing challenges, including digital health, climate change, broad digital access, and data maturity in the social sector.
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Director of the Centre for Data Futures