Defining organizational AI governance

Claims that cite this source · 7

1. Interpretation· confidence high· passage checked

   “Field of inquiry and practice” keeps together two senses that the definitions surveyed tend to separate: AI governance as a field of study (Dafoe) and as a set of instruments that organisations or governments use (Mäntymäki et al., Kenya). Hua and Belfield’s “study or practice” does the same.

2. Interpretation· confidence medium· passage checked

   “How societies should” sets the scope wider than a single organisation, where several explicit definitions place governance (Mäntymäki et al., Schneider et al., IAPP, IBM, Japan’s business guidelines). It is closest to Chile’s multi-actor definition of governance and the UN advisory body’s multi-stakeholder framing, and it keeps the question normative: what should be done, not only what is done.

3. Interpretation· confidence medium· passage checked

   “Shape” treats governance as steering rather than assurance. The nearest framings are Japan’s stakeholders designing and operating systems and ECLAC’s measure of the state’s capacity to steer AI deployment; most explicit definitions instead describe instruments that ensure compliance or alignment.

4. Interpretation· confidence high· passage checked

   Organisational definitions aim governance at strategy, law and ethics principles. Broad sharing of benefits appears instead in intergovernmental and Global South framings: the UN advisory body’s “leave no one behind”, the African Union’s inclusion and African agendas, and the Montevideo declaration’s inclusion and equitable access.

5. Interpretation· confidence high· passage checked

   The AIGovSpec definition is less operational than organisational definitions such as Mäntymäki et al. or Japan’s business guidelines. It does not say which rules, processes or roles to put in place; in this framework, the tests and diagnostic questions carry that work.

6. Interpretation· confidence medium· passage checked

   Read in order, the documents move from field-defining scholarship and principles (2017–2021), to organisational management systems and risk functions (2020–2023), to national strategies, laws and standing international bodies (2024–2026). The term spreads faster than any shared definition of it.

7. Interpretation· confidence medium· passage checked

   Where explicit definitions exist, most (nine of thirteen here) pair a set of instruments, such as rules, practices, processes or frameworks, with a purpose clause such as “to ensure” compliance, alignment or responsible use. They describe what governance is made of more often than what it acts on.