Summary

The University of California (UC) is increasingly incorporating artificial intelligence as a means to improve its operations. While AI can bring significant benefits, ill-conceived deployments risk imposing disproportionate harms. In order to guide the appropriate oversight and implementation of AI, UC President Michael Drake and former UC President Janet Napolitano formed a Presidential Working Group charged with developing overarching principles and recommendations for UC’s current and future use of AI. Launched in August 2020, the interdisciplinary “UC Presidential Working Group on Artificial Intelligence” was composed of 32 faculty and staff from all 10 UC campuses, as well as representatives from UC Legal; Office of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services (ECAS); Procurement; Office of the Chief Information Officer; Research & Innovation; and UC Health, among others. The members represent diverse disciplines, including computer science and engineering, law and policy, medicine, and the social sciences. The Working Group met monthly from August 2020 to August 2021 and developed a set of UC Responsible AI Principles to guide the procurement, development, implementation, and monitoring of AI as may be implemented by UC. The Working Group does not address issues related to academic research on AI. Instead, the Working Group is focused on providing guidance to UC on appropriate implementation of AI in service provision (e.g., in the administration of human resources services and UC Health services). HRC Co-Faculty Director Alexa Koenig served as the Co-Chair of the Human Resources Subcommittee, and many longtime HRC partners were also involved in this project.

*The Human Rights Center contributed substantively to this report. We did not author it.