In a recent design salon the question of what the role of AI now can be came up. What is a policy that AI could address? A role it could take on? A position in which it could be more helpful and effective where it could put people first? Here was my answer to this thought experiment:
Terms of Servitude
Terms of service on most technology, services, platforms, and even products are inaccessible, inappropriate, and breach morals and ethics. What if AI was actually used for good to not only clarify these to people but also help hold some accountability on the provider on behalf of people who have to engage in them even if they do not agree with them or more often, do not even know that they are and what they mean.
The Terms of Servitude is a hypothetical proposition that terms of services, procedures, policies, and regulation documentation, and any other contract of services people have to validate prior to using a product, must be translated into accessible, inclusive, plain talked language with the option to reject the contract and still have access to the product.
Terms of services are too long, filled with jargon, hard to read, and difficult to understand. By placing them before access to a product and using a simple check box for consent, many people do not read or know what is hidden in them and what they have granted the use of. To combat this blatant robbery of privacy, data, and personal protections, we can use AI to translate these documents into understandable, digestible, plain talked content that gives power back to the people. Instead of protecting companies and allowing them to stretch their reach and obtain endless consent. Let’s shit AI from curating what may or may not be important or interesting, to the role of pulling back the veil and removing the burden of onus of understanding from people and place it on the provider/company. The ability for AI to learn and adapt here can force companies to create more transparent and defined terms of service that put the people and their rights and protections first rather than hiding shady behavior in long technical traps.