Occasional Paper  

A Roadmap for Governing AI: Technology Governance and Power Sharing Liberalism

Download the PDF

This paper aims to provide a roadmap to AI governance. In contrast to the reigning paradigms, we argue that AI governance should not be merely a reactive, punitive, status-quo-defending enterprise, but rather the expression of an expansive, proactive vision for technology—to advance human flourishing. Advancing human flourishing in turn requires democratic/political stability and economic empowerment. Our overarching point is that answering questions of how we should govern this emerging technology is a chance not merely to categorize and manage narrow risk but also to construe the risks and opportunities much more broadly, and to make correspondingly large investments in public goods, personnel, and democracy itself. To lay out this vision, we take four steps. First, we define some central concepts in the field, disambiguating between forms of technological harms and risks. Second, we review normative frameworks governing emerging technology that are currently in use around the globe. Third, we outline an alternative normative framework based in power-sharing liberalism. Fourth, we walk through a series of governance tasks that ought to be accomplished by any policy framework guided by our model of power-sharing liberalism. We follow these with proposals for implementation vehicles.

More from this Program

Conference on the Political Economy of AI Podcast Episodes
Photo of participants from the conference.

Podcast

Conference on the Political Economy of AI Podcast Episodes

Check out the podcast episodes from the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation’s Conference on the Political Economy of AI to glean insights from each panel.

AI and Democracy Summer Reading List
Graphic that includes all of the book covers mentioned in this list.

Feature

AI and Democracy Summer Reading List

This list, curated by the GETTING-Plurality Research Network at the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, highlights a mix of foundational texts and new thinking on the timely issue of how AI will impact democracy, especially as we head into election season.

More on this Issue

Conference on the Political Economy of AI Podcast Episodes
Photo of participants from the conference.

Podcast

Conference on the Political Economy of AI Podcast Episodes

Check out the podcast episodes from the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation’s Conference on the Political Economy of AI to glean insights from each panel.

Using AI for Political Polling
A chart with blue and red columns is set against a backdrop of zeros and ones

Commentary

Using AI for Political Polling

Will AI-assisted polls soon replace more traditional techniques?

AI and Democracy Summer Reading List
Graphic that includes all of the book covers mentioned in this list.

Feature

AI and Democracy Summer Reading List

This list, curated by the GETTING-Plurality Research Network at the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, highlights a mix of foundational texts and new thinking on the timely issue of how AI will impact democracy, especially as we head into election season.