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This list of resources, curated by the GETTING-Plurality Research Network at the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, highlights emerging ideas at the intersection of technology and democracy.
Technology and democracy are at a crucial inflection point. The outcomes of the historic 2024 election year have revealed both the vulnerabilities and resilience of democratic institutions around the world. At the same time, rapid advancements in artificial intelligence are reshaping our lives, with social, economic, environmental, and geopolitical implications.
For those interested in learning more, the reading list below, curated by the GETTING-Plurality Research Network at the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, aims to reflect the urgency of the current moment. These books, articles, and videos explore the intersections of technology and democracy across disciplines, including philosophy, political theory, law, ethics, and policy. Together, they highlight the breadth of thought and impact related to technology’s role in our democratic lives, raising warnings and pointing to possibilities for the future.
Karen Hao 
Hao details AI companies’ quest toward artificial general intelligence, a hypothetical AI that has human-level intelligence, and outlines how they are quickly creating the “modern-day colonial world order.”
Marietje Schaake 
Schaake explains how technology companies’ unchecked power is undermining our democracies and shares potential solutions. To learn more, you can view this recording from the Ash Center’s online book talk with the author.
Greg M. Epstein 
Epstein questions our worship of technology and innovation, urging us to maintain a critical perspective before extending our faith.
Lowry Pressly 
Pressly explores the real value of privacy in our lives and why protecting it is critical for our humanity.
Josh Simons 
Simons argues that the design, use, and regulation of AI are human choices that carry significant weight in maintaining a healthy democracy.
Multiple authors
In this collection of essays, leading scholars and experts raise critical questions surrounding power, governance, and democracy as they consider how technology can better serve the public interest.
Ganesh Sitaraman and Alex Pascal
This report argues that public options for AI, along with utility-style regulation, will strengthen national security by promoting innovation and competition, preventing abuses of power and conflicts of interest, and advancing the public interest and national security goals.
Julie E. Cohen
Cohen lays out how tech oligarchs, who wield unprecedented power, are reconfiguring our institutions, hollowing out public capacity, and challenging core democratic norms.
E. Glen Weyl, Luke Thorburn, Emillie de Keulenaar, Jacob Mchangama, Divya Siddarth, and Audrey Tang
In this paper, the authors present an alternative model for how social media could be redesigned to foster connection over division.
Roman Curia, Vatican
This important document from the Vatican lays out an ethical framework for AI, highlights the importance of human dignity and moral responsibility, and outlines a vision for the responsible development and use of this technology.
Multiple authors
This essay series explores how deliberative processes can strengthen democracy, drawing on lessons from citizens’ assemblies and civic technology-enabled tools that are being tested around the world.
Multiple authors
This series features multiple authors exploring how AI has changed the world and envisioning the possible futures that the technology might present.
At the Paris AI Action Summit, Allen argued that DOGE represents the real-time implementation of an extreme ideological vision that defines the role that technology and a small cohort of its wealthiest leaders should play in the world.
The Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and Institute of Politics hosted the “Building a Digital Democracy” panel in the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard Kennedy School which brought together Audrey Tang, Megan Smith, Danielle Allen, and Mathias Risse for a conversation on how technology is being used to transform our political institutions.
Commentary
Amid rising illiberalism, Danielle Allen urges a new agenda to renew democracy by reorienting institutions, policymaking, and civil society around the intentional sharing of power.
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Public engagement has long been too time-consuming and costly for governments to sustain, but AI offers tools to make participation more systematic and impactful. Our new Reboot Democracy Workshop Series replaces lectures with hands-on sessions that teach the practical “how-to’s” of AI-enhanced engagement. Together with leading practitioners and partners at InnovateUS and the Allen Lab at Harvard, we’ll explore how AI can help institutions tap the collective intelligence of our communities more efficiently and effectively.
Feature
Public engagement has long been too time-consuming and costly for governments to sustain, but AI offers tools to make participation more systematic and impactful. Our new Reboot Democracy Workshop Series replaces lectures with hands-on sessions that teach the practical “how-to’s” of AI-enhanced engagement. Together with leading practitioners and partners at InnovateUS and the Allen Lab at Harvard, we’ll explore how AI can help institutions tap the collective intelligence of our communities more efficiently and effectively.
