In this blog post, Christos, Tech Relations Lead at eyeo, shares his experience at W3C TPAC.
The W3C TPAC (Technical Plenary and Advisory Committee) is an annual event organized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) between the 11 and 15 of September 2023. The W3C is an international community that develops web standards and guidelines to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. TPAC serves as a gathering of W3C working groups, interest groups and advisory committees to collaborate, discuss ongoing and future work and make important decisions related to web standards and technologies.
Credit: w3.org
This year, the eyeo team attended TPAC and participated in meetings across eight working groups and facilitated three sessions. The representatives included:
TPAC offers a unique platform to engage with the global web community, align our products with emerging standards, advocate for modifications and showcase our expertise in vital domains such as Privacy, Ad filtering and Ethical AI.
eyeo’s purpose is about transforming the internet into a fair, sustainable, and accessible place by building technologies that bring balance to the digital world. For us,W3C TPAC 2023 is an excellent forum for contributing to standards aligned with our values, identifying like-minded parties and staying up to date with all the latest developments.
Besides participating in eight working group meetings, eyeo led two workshops and one lighting talk on Ethical AI in a radically evolving landscape and Sustainability in the Digital World.
Dr. Humera Noor Minhas leading a session on stage
The Ethical AI in a radically evolving landscape workshop centred on whether AI ethics is primarily an engineering or product issue and the strategic phase in the software development life cycle to initiate ethical considerations. It aimed to tackle the challenge of integrating ethics into AI solutions as an inherent part of their design rather than a superficial layer added as an afterthought.
The workshop offered valuable insights into integrating ethical AI principles into the core values of enterprises and emphasized the necessity for a fundamental shift in perspective to avoid common pitfalls and challenges associated with AI ethics. We explored actionable measures and discussed real-world examples while navigating the ethical landscape of AI seamlessly. You can read the full workshop debrief and highlights on TPAC’s breakout sessions GitHub repo.
A snapshot of the discussion on how to implement ethics in AI
During the workshop, key highlights included the introduction of sustainability scopes, examples of sustainability forms and a debate on the efficacy of offsetting actions. We stressed the importance of web sustainability guidelines and the need for conscious decision-making. The conversation also touched on the balance between awareness and solutions in the sustainability realm. Additionally, we also discussed how to integratesustainability into W3C specifications, with a focus on reducing carbon emissions in web technologies.
An overview of the emission sources
The meeting concluded with an invitation for participants to join the Web Sustainability Guidelines community group, dedicated to developing standards focused on sustainability, underscoring the commitment to advancing sustainability practices in technology.
eyeo's commitment to fostering a fair and prosperous internet for everyone is reflected in its active participation at W3C TPAC. By taking an active role in W3C, particularly in the areas of Ethical AI and Web Sustainability, eyeo will not only continue to contribute to the standards that resonate with their core values but also lead by example in driving these principles forward.