Who is responsible for ‘responsible AI’?: Navigating challenges to build trust in AI agriculture and food system technology

This article presents findings from interviews that were conducted with agriculture and food system researchers to understand their views about what it means to conduct ‘responsible’ or ‘trustworthy’ artificial intelligence (AI) research. Findings are organized into four themes: (1) data access and related ethical problems; (2) regulations and their impact on AI food system technology research; (3) barriers to the development and adoption of AI-based food system technologies; and (4) bridges of trust that researchers feel are important in overcoming the barriers they identified. All four themes reveal gray areas and contradictions that make it challenging for academic researchers to earn the trust of farmers and food producers. At the same time, this trust is foundational to research that would contribute to the development of high-quality AI technologies. Factors such as increasing regulations and worsening environmental conditions are stressing agricultural systems and are opening windows of opportunity for technological solutions. However, the dysfunctional process of technology development and adoption revealed in these interviews threatens to close these windows prematurely. Insights from these interviews can support governments and institutions in developing policies that will keep the windows open by helping to bridge divides between interests and supporting the development of technologies that deserve to be called “responsible” or “trustworthy” AI.