The Google AI Council (1) bears a strong resemblance to the Defense Innovation Board (2). I think Google's main error is that the membership was too small. The dilutional power of increased membership would have made it harder to make a show out of any individual selectee.
Plenty of board memberships are unpaid, specifically the DoD has a bunch of them. The parent organization still pays all the fees for events, so the members are on a level playing field. As for disadvantaging the poor ... what? These councils are literally about establishing leadership positions at the national and international level. You need people with intimate visibility on the great issues of our time. If you're starting a board on prison reform, then, sure, a couple ex-cons should be on the board. But even then, you're going to look for an ex-con who went on to build a business or change the world in some way.
I don't know. I've presented to some of these "toothless" boards before, and I have to say, they were, to a T, very clever people who have worked very hard for their whole lives. I don't get the sense they're in it for the press or even for the networking. They're thinking hard and working hard, trying to get a CEO or equivalent leader to turn the ship.
Plenty of board memberships are unpaid, specifically the DoD has a bunch of them. The parent organization still pays all the fees for events, so the members are on a level playing field. As for disadvantaging the poor ... what? These councils are literally about establishing leadership positions at the national and international level. You need people with intimate visibility on the great issues of our time. If you're starting a board on prison reform, then, sure, a couple ex-cons should be on the board. But even then, you're going to look for an ex-con who went on to build a business or change the world in some way.
I don't know. I've presented to some of these "toothless" boards before, and I have to say, they were, to a T, very clever people who have worked very hard for their whole lives. I don't get the sense they're in it for the press or even for the networking. They're thinking hard and working hard, trying to get a CEO or equivalent leader to turn the ship.
(1) https://www.blog.google/technology/ai/external-advisory-coun...
(2) https://innovation.defense.gov/Members/