Community Call: Governing AI in Fragile Systems
This is a Metagov Community Call discussion centered around how AI governance functions, or breaks down, in fragile, conflict-ridden, or under-resourced settings. This topic builds on themes of structural risk, edge cases, and testing public infrastructure in practice.
In many Global South/Majority World/crisis-affected contexts, frontier technology isn’t just an abstract or emerging risk. It’s in the process of deployment--through development pipelines, sovereign deals, militarization, or crisis response systems--but without durable accountability mechanisms. That means that the most vulnerable people are likely soon to be experiencing the consequences of opaque models, repurposed infrastructure, and governance gaps.
This conversation will discuss questions such as:
What “public” means where legitimacy is fractured or state capacity is limited.
How AI tools are used in vulnerable settings, with an opportunity to explore some of the exciting solutions on the horizon, as well as the consequences
How proposed global governance models are likely to break down when exported to fragile environments, where data flows, incentives, and political structures differ fundamentally.
The topic will be introduced by Metagov community member Elana Banin, a policy strategist with over 15 years of experience leading research, policy, and advocacy initiatives at the International Rescue Committee, UNICEF, and PATH.
Recommended readings include:
David Nash’s “AI and the Future of Development”, which challenges Western-centric narratives on AI adoption
Elana's own analysis in “The Scaling Era as a State of Mind”, which interrogates how scale distorts governance norms, especially in asymmetrical contexts.
This call would aim to surface field-based insights, policy implications, and questions of alignment and legitimacy.
We will also be inviting a handful of folks from the LA area to share what they witnessed post-fire this January regarding AI. Join us!
More about Community Calls: Metagov Community Calls are informal discussion-based, peer-learning, or tool play-test calls that can be proposed, hosted, and facilitated by any member of the Metagov community.
The format may vary according to whether the call is a group discussion or a tool play-test; however, a standard format might entail a ~10 minute introduction to the topic by the host followed by the group discussion (based on 3-5 questions prepared by the host) or play-test experience. For information on Proposing and Hosting a call, see here: https://metagov.pubpub.org/pub/0s838ukp/release/1
*This illustration is a filtered version of the living cover for The Scaling Era, available at stripe.press/scaling