Measure presents "Communities in the Loop," urging community-led AI governance for Austin

Mimi Stiles, president and founder of Measure, presented the organization's "Communities in the Loop" project to the City of Austin Technology Commission on July 8, describing a yearlong, community-led engagement that gathered feedback from more than 409 residents (including 117 participants in city-led sessions).

"If AI is going to shape all of our lives, then we, the people, should be able to say how it's governed," Stiles said. She described a process that treated residents as co-creators and co-researchers and said the study identified five consistent themes from community conversations: participation, transparency and accountability, human oversight, privacy and safeguards, and AI literacy.

Stiles translated those themes into six concrete recommendations for the city: establish a permanent community AI advisory structure; create an AI transparency registry so residents can see where and how AI is used; maintain human-oversight requirements; expand AI literacy programming so communities can meaningfully engage; develop public accountability mechanisms for addressing harm; and integrate environmental justice into AI governance given the local concentration of data centers.

Commissioners asked questions about whether the framework could inform state-level work and about community hopes for beneficial uses of AI. Stiles said the framework could scale beyond Austin and cited the Crown Act as an example of a local initiative influencing state policy. She also described both opportunity and trade-offs: community members noted AI could enable entrepreneurship, but many worried about what they would have to give up to realize that potential.

Chair Steven Apodaca thanked Stiles and said the commission would explore partnering on future community convenings and work with the city clerk to determine whether the commission could formally endorse the framework at a later date.