The Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation’s Technology and Democracy workstream aims to ensure that emerging technologies are developed and governed in support of the public benefit.
The Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation’s Technology and Democracy workstream is focused on developing democracy-supportive technology policies, harnessing the opportunities for emerging technologies to improve governance, fostering professional norms that lead to technology development supportive of human pluralism, and building a robust pipeline of experts who can bridge ethical and technical considerations within policy and industry spaces. We pursue this work through foundational analysis and theory, field-building, and policy development.
Paper
Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation authors offer the first comprehensive analysis of how Massachusetts municipalities are using technology to support civic engagement, government decision-making, and public service delivery.
Open Access Resource
Allen Lab authors Sarah Hubbard, David Kidd, and Andrei Stupu introduce an ethical-moral intelligence framework for evaluating AI models across dimensions of moral expertise, sensitivity, coherence, and transparency in their recently published paper, Crocodile Tears: Can the Ethical-Moral Intelligence of AI Models Be Trusted? in Springer AI & Ethics.
Earlier this year, the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation hosted a convening on the Political Economy of AI. This collection of essays from leading scholars and experts raise critical questions surrounding power, governance, and democracy as they consider how technology can better serve the public interest.
This policy primer from the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation is intended to introduce the ideas and conversations around how public AI alternatives could foster an ecosystem that prioritizes the public interest while offering a counterbalance to corporate concentration.
This policy primer from the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation is intended to introduce the ideas and conversations around reform of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and how it could remake the social media ecosystem.
Open Access Resource
This paper aims to provide a roadmap for governing AI. In contrast to the reigning paradigms, we argue that AI governance should be not merely a reactive, punitive, status-quo-defending enterprise, but rather the expression of an expansive, proactive vision for technology—to advance human flourishing.
At the center of our work is our multidisciplinary research network. The Governance of Emerging Technology and Tech Innovations for Next-Gen Governance (GETTING-Plurality) is a research network linking philosophers, social scientists, computer scientists, legal scholars, and technologists. This unique collaborative unites tech ethics initiatives at Harvard University with external impact partners across higher education and the tech industry, bringing philosophers and ethicists to the table for every project.
Our network seeks to advance understanding of how to shape, guide, govern, and deploy technological development in support of democracy, collective intelligence, and other public goods. Our focus is on how to do so, given the plural nature of human intelligence. We connect theory with practice to ensure that academic insights inform real-world policy and industry standards.
Professor of Public Policy, James Bryant Conant University Professor
PhD, Senior Lab Director
Associate Director for Technology & Democracy
Senior Fellow, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation;
Co-Director and Co-Investigator, GETTING-Plurality Research Network
Feb. 2024-Jan. 2026
Distinguished Fellow, Center on Privacy and Technology, Georgetown Law
Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Northeastern University
Professor, Northeastern University
Founder, Equiano Institute
Faculty Member, MIT and National Tsing Hua University
Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University
Research Scientist, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Professor, Santa Fe Institute
Researcher & Lawyer
Founder, Remake Africa & Plurality Lead, School of Politics, Policy and Governance
Affiliate, Berkman Klein Center & Affiliate, Centre for the Governance of AI
Postdoctoral Researcher, Meta FAIR & Affiliate, Berkman Klein Center
Faculty Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy & Professor, Harvard Kennedy School
Non-resident Senior Fellow
Physician Instructor and Clinical Informaticist, Rush University Medical Center
EthicAI and Former Visiting Fellow, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
Allen Lab Policy Fellow AY 2023-2025
Research Lead, Microsoft Research, Plural Technology Collaboratory & Founder, RadicalxChange Foundation
Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology and Economic Theory, Harvard University
Former Co-Head of Corporate Strategy, Microsoft
PhD Candidate in Political Science, Yale University
PhD Candidate in Economics, MIT
PhD Candidate, King's College London
Research Scientist, OpenAI
Co-Founder, Collective Intelligence Project
PhD Candidate in Government, Harvard University
Researcher, Microsoft Research
Researcher, Harvard College
Strategy, Microsoft
Co-Founder, Collective Intelligence Project
Occasional Paper
Video
The “Advancements in Global AI Policy” webinar featured the following speakers and topics:
Video
“Regulating Web3: Global Trends and Challenges” webinar session featured the following speakers and topics:
Additional Resource
On November 7, 2023, the Summit on AI and Democracy gathered experts across multiple institutions to discuss ongoing research, policy, and development efforts related to the recent advancements in artificial intelligence.
Additional Resource
“Reimagining Democracy for AI” by Aviv Ovadya was featured in the October 2023 Journal of Democracy.
Abstract: AI advances are shattering assumptions that both our democracies and our international order rely on. Reinventing our “democratic infrastructure” is thus critically necessary—and the author argues that it is also possible. Four interconnected and accelerating democratic paradigm shifts illustrate the potential: representative deliberations, AI augmentation, democracy-as-a-service, and platform democracy. Such innovations provide a viable path toward not just reimagining traditional democracies but enabling the transnational and even global democratic processes critical for addressing the broader challenges posed by destabilizing AI advances—including those relating to AI alignment and global agreements. We can and must rapidly invest in such democratic innovation if we are to ensure that our democratic capacity increases with our power.
Video
“The Dark Side of AI: Crime and Adversarial Use Cases” webinar session featured the following speakers and topics:
Video
The “Introduction to AI and Public Policy” webinar session featured the following speakers and topics:
Article
This working paper aims to articulate an interdisciplinary research and practice area focused around bridging systems.
Policy Brief
The GETTING-Plurality Research Network submitted a series of memos which respond to various questions posed around the topics of bolstering democracy and civic participation; protecting rights, safety, and national security; and promoting economic growth and good jobs.
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) can be defined as global, digitally-native organizations which enable people to coordinate and govern shared resources and activities through the use of smart contracts on blockchains.
Video
GETTING-Plurality Workstream Lead Aviv Ovadya recently discussed his work on bridging systems as part of “Optimizing for What? Algorithmic Amplification and Society.” This two-day symposium at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute explored algorithmic amplification and distortion as well as potential interventions.
Policy Brief
In this short web ethics research brief, the authors unpack and comment on the four-step logic at the core of GETTING-Plurality’s foundational white paper, Ethics of Decentralized Social Technologies: Lessons from Web3, the Fediverse, and Beyond. They outline four assertions from the paper that demonstrate the power and the challenge of web ethics – and above all, the urgency – of placing human flourishing at the center of technology governance.
Policy Brief
The authors highlight why we believe the problem of “plural publics” to be a core challenge of data governance, discuss existing tools that can help achieve it and a research agenda to further develop and integrate these tools.
Commentary
ChatGPT and other AIs could supercharge the influence of lobbyists—but only if we let them.
Commentary
When is it time to start worrying about artificial intelligence interfering in our democracy? Maybe when an AI writes a letter to The New York Times opposing the regulation of its own technology.