Democratization of AI: Challenges of AI Cyberinfrastructure and Software Research

Large scale virtual teams working in the academic setting who assemble to carry out research that results in contributions to national cyberinfrastructure face a set of competing challenges. For the research team that is exploring AI, these challenges come into high relief when examined through the lense of responsibility to society. What form does responsibility for downstream uses of AI take in an NSF funded AI Institute, especially one that has as its priority to advance AI in and for cyberinfrastructure? In this brief abstract we identify the competing interests, and show how they raise challenges when analyzed through the lense of Democratizing AI. Our background is our now 2-year involvement in the NSF AI Institute Intelligent Cyberinfrastructure with Computational Learning in the Environment (ICICLE) [2].