Policy Brief  

AGI and Democracy

We face a fundamental question: is the very pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) the kind of aim democracies should allow?

Photo Credit: Gertrūda Valasevičiūtė, Unsplash

If we are a long way short of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), why worry about it now?

Seth Lazar and Alex Pascal argue that the people building the most advanced AI systems are explicitly and aggressively working to bring AGI about, and they think they’ll get there in two to five years. Even some of the most publicly skeptical AI researchers don’t rule out AGI within this decade. If we, the affected public, do not actively shape this agenda now, we may miss the chance to do so at all. We face a fundamental question: is the very pursuit of AGI the kind of aim democracies should allow?

More from this Program

Experiential Civic Learning for American Democracy

Additional Resource

Experiential Civic Learning for American Democracy

A new report provides a clear, actionable framework for effective experiential civic learning—what it is, why it matters, and how to do it well.

Utah Digital Choice Act: Reshaping Social Media

Additional Resource

Utah Digital Choice Act: Reshaping Social Media

The bipartisan Utah Digital Choice Act aims to reform the social media ecosystem by giving users more choice and ownership over their personal data, while encouraging platform innovation and competition.

More on this Issue