The importance of a social dialogue
Increasing digitalisation and the associated use of AI have brought it sharply into focus for society, both positively and negatively – AI has long been a major part of our daily lives and will become even more so in the future. However, a large proportion of the Dutch population still know very little about AI and are not yet aware of the impact of applying AI in their daily lives. To prepare the country’s residents as well as possible for a future with AI, it is important that the whole of the Netherlands should become involved and that the general level of knowledge and awareness about AI should be raised. This will let people make the most of the applications of AI in their daily lives.
Start of the AI Parade
To achieve this, the Netherlands AI Coalition wants to engage with people, inspire them and bring them together. During the AI Parade, we will be doing this together with our partners through exhibitions, dialogue sessions and workshops. The AI Parade will travel to eleven provinces over the course of ten months to engage with a million residents of the Netherlands about AI. The AI Parade will start in Overijssel in September 2022 at libraries in Zwolle, Deventer, Hengelo and Enschede, and will then travel through the rest of the Netherlands. The impact and reach of the AI Parade are being carefully measured. The input it provides will be fed back from the participating libraries to the Netherlands AI Coalition.
The library as a place to meet
A library is the ideal spot for the AI Parade: the kind of place anyone can go to with no worries – so it is the right place for making even a complex concept like AI understandable. It is no coincidence that a fifth of all residents of the Netherlands are library members and that annual visitor numbers for all libraries taken together are around 62 million. Libraries also have an important task in actively helping members of the public to be part of the information society, for instance by providing training and facilitating the public dialogue. It is important to learn from each other and to help residents of the Netherlands make independent and conscious choices about the application of AI.
Further information about the AI Parade in Zwolle
From 15 September, the Stadkamer library in Zwolle will host the AI Parade, a travelling event offering various activities that introduce the public at large to the uses and impact of AI in and on society and engage them in the conversation about it. We warmly invite you to visit the first on-site AI Parade and take part in the activities. The AI Parade consists of an installation, an exhibition and various other activities. Visit the website (in Dutch) for more information about the programme in Zwolle or click here for more about the importance of human-centric AI.
