This dataset was created to collect information about projects in the field of public interest AI. There is an existing research gap, since focus in the discourse is mainly on for-profit companies that build AI-systems. Also, the discourse on AI for good often does not provide detailed information about the projects it refers to and their set up regarding funding or organizational connection. This data aims at contributing to fill this research gap. We were especially interested in what fields and towards which goals public interest oriented AI is being developed. Therefore, the data we collected is categorized with the SDGs. This does not mean that the public interest and the SDGs are the same, but we believe they can serve as categories to help understand the landscape of projects. The projects were collected in two manners. The first methodological approach was a network-based search method (called “Network Search” in the Dataset) to identify relevant projects. Any project identified through these interactions was documented and vetted against the minimal definition in the dataset. This approach was considered to be the most effective and reliable means of capturing relevant information, given the lack of pre-existing datasets or comprehensive repositories specifically focused on public interest AI projects. The second approach employed a structured web-based search methodology to identify relevant projects (called “Google Search” in the Dataset).
