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International Perspectives: Multi-sited Research Methodologies

“AI is an emerging technology that has really had a significant economic impact, but that also contains a masculine overrepresentation in terms of who develops and who potentially benefits from these technologies.”

Eleonore Fournier-Tombs
Adjunct Professor, Civil Law Section, Faculty of Law
Director of the Inclusive Technology Lab, uOttawa

Since the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed countless vulnerabilities across all domains of society, particularly in countries that were already suffering from humanitarian challenges. As nations around the world continue to seek to understand the pandemic and find ways to protect their most vulnerable citizens, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) has presented both interesting solutions and disturbing challenges. This video, which captures a presentation from the 4th Autumn School on the Methodology of Research in Law, explores the use of inclusive research methodologies to capture crucial international perspectives that can help to advance the pursuit of accountable AI.   

Adjunct Professor Eleonore Fournier-Tombs (Civil Law Section, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa) researches how technology relates to global inequalities, pluralism and deliberative democracy. Professor Céline Castets-Renard (Civil Law Section, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa), meanwhile, has a special interest in digital technologies and their impact, with a specific focus on AI and its regulation, including the legal and ethical challenges that arise as new technologies are developed. In this video, the two researchers discuss how they have conceptualized research methodologies allowing them to work and collect data from different international sites in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

More specifically, they explain how – as part of a broader project using artificial intelligence to trace the evolution of COVID-19 in Senegal and Mali – they developed new methodologies to efficiently collect data, while respecting the ethical, socio-political, cultural and legal issues specific to the use of advanced AI technologies in these regions.

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Presenters
Eleonore Fournier-Tombs & Céline Castets-Renard

Eleonore Fournier-Tombs  

Adjunct Professor, Civil Law Section, Faculty of Law 

Director of the Inclusive Technology Lab, uOttawa 

Dr. Eleonore Fournier-Tombs is a researcher, a data scientist, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section. She has a strong interest in the dynamics of technology and global inequality, pluralism and deliberative democracy. She has 15 years of professional experience in international development, finance and humanitarian aid, as a data scientist, researcher and communications professional. She is the Director of the Inclusive Technology Lab and the Coordinator of the Research Chair on Accountable AI in a Global Context at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section. She is also a consultant for the World Bank and the United Nations.

Céline Castets-Renard  

Full Professor and University Research Chair on Accountable Artificial Intelligence in a Global Context, Civil Law Section, Faculty of Law 

Dr. Céline Castets-Renard is the University Research Chair on Accountable Artificial Intelligence in a Global Context, a Faculty member at the University of Ottawa Centre for Law, Technology and Society, and a Full Professor in the Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section. Dr. Castets-Renard’s research focuses on digital law and regulation in various areas of private law, ranging from the impact of technology on contracts and civil liability to intellectual property, personal data protection, e-commerce, ethical issues related to the regulation of autonomous cars and cyber security. Her work led her to be appointed to the French Government Research Chair “Law, Accountability and Social Trust in AI” within ANITI (Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute, ANR-3IA).

Prior to joining the University of Ottawa, Professor Castets-Renard was a professor from 2012 to 2019 at the Université Toulouse Capitole in France and in 2011-2012, she was a visiting professor at the Université de Nouvelle Calédonie, where she conducted research on the protection of indigenous knowledge.

n 2015, she was appointed as a Junior member of the prestigious Institut Universitaire de France. This five-year appointment allowed her to focus on her research program, which focuses on digital regulation, but also to complete a research residency in the United States at Fordham Law School, where she was a Fulbright Scholar, as well as with the Internet Society Project, Yale University.

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