Danielle Allen
Professor of Public Policy, HKS;
James Bryant Conant University Professor, FAS
GETTING-Plurality
A part of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, GETTING-Plurality is a multi-disciplinary research network linking philosophers, social scientists, computer scientists, legal scholars, and technologists
Governance of Emerging Technology and Tech Innovations for Next-Gen Governance (GETTING-Plurality) is a multi-disciplinary research network linking philosophers, social scientists, computer scientists, legal scholars, and technologists. We are building a unique collaborative that 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.
The network is housed in the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation.
Our Mission
We’re at a pivotal moment. To promote universal well-being, we need to promote the responsible governance of innovation and responsibly innovate the way we govern.
GETTING-Plurality 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 pursue foundational analysis and theory, field-building, and policy development to foresee and mitigate potential harms to democracy and to strengthen the public benefit and democracy-supportive effects flowing from technology innovation.
Research Areas
This network will convene multi-disciplinary teams to tackle questions of how to govern emerging technologies and how to deploy emerging technologies for governance from a multiplicity of viewpoints and expertise.
Leadership
Darshan Goux
Senior Lab Director, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
Sarah Hubbard
Senior Fellow, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
Allison Stanger
Senior Fellow, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation;
Co-Director and Co-Investigator, GETTING-Plurality Research Network
Network Members
Tina Eliassi-Rad
Professor, Northeastern University
Eli Frankel
Research Coordinator, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
Zoë Hitzig
Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows
Saffron Huang
Co-Founder, Collective Intelligence Project
Uma Ilavarasan
PhD Candidate in Government, Harvard University
Shrey Jain
Researcher, Microsoft Research
Yu-Ting Kuo
Faculty Member, MIT and National Tsing Hua University
Seth Lazar
Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University
Anna Lewis
Research Scientist, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Woojin Lim
Researcher, Harvard College
Puja Ohlhaver
Researcher & Lawyer
Aviv Ovadya
Affiliate, Berkman-Klein Center, Harvard Law School & Affiliate, Centre for the Governance of AI
Alexander Pascal
Senior Fellow, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
Nick Pyati
Strategy, Microsoft
Mathias Risse
Faculty Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy & Professor, Harvard Kennedy School
Bruce Schneier
Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy
Divya Siddarth
Co-Founder, Collective Intelligence Project
Charlotte Siegmann
PhD Candidate in Economics, MIT
Ajeet Singh
Physician Instructor and Clinical Informaticist, Rush University Medical Center
Meredith Sumpter
CEO & Managing Partner, Just Equity
Luke Thorburn
PhD Student, King's College London
Shlomit Wagman
Visiting Fellow
Glen Weyl
Research Lead, Microsoft Research, Plural Technology Collaboratory & Founder, RadicalxChange Foundation
Zachary Wojtowicz
Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology and Economic Theory, Harvard University
Kinney Zalesne
Former Co-Head of Corporate Strategy, Microsoft
Upcoming Events
Ash Center Open House
In-Person Event
Ash Center Foyer, Suite 200, 124 Mount Auburn Street
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT
GETTING-Plurality: AI Governance and the Human Genome Project
In-Person Event
Virtual
12:00 pm – 1:15 pm EDT
Building a Digital Democracy with Audrey Tang and Megan Smith
In-Person Event
JFK Jr. Forum
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT
The latest news, resources, and research
Additional Resource
Summit on AI and Democracy
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
“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
“The Dark Side of AI: Crime and Adversarial Use Cases” webinar session featured the following speakers and topics:
- Bruce Schneier (Harvard): Hackers and Security Vulnerabilities
- Matt Groh (Northwestern): Deepfakes and Misinformation, see related paper The Art and Science of Generative AI
- Shlomit Wagman (Harvard): Financial Crime
- Jennifer Calvery (HSBC): Financial Crime
Video
Introduction to AI and Public Policy
The “Introduction to AI and Public Policy” webinar session featured the following speakers and topics:
- Danielle Allen (Harvard): AI and Democracy
- Sandy Pentland (MIT): A Practical Framework for Data and AI systems for Regulators
- Shayne Longpre (MIT): A Primer in Large Language Models
- Gabriele Mazzini (European Commission): Overview of the EU AI Act
Article
Bridging Systems: Open Problems for Countering Destructive Divisiveness across Ranking, Recommenders, and Governance
This working paper aims to articulate an interdisciplinary research and practice area focused around bridging systems.
Policy Brief
GETTING-Plurality Comments to White House OSTP on National Priorities for Artificial Intelligence
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 and Policy Considerations in the United States
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
Optimizing for What? Algorithmic Amplification and Society
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
Putting Flourishing First: Applying Democratic Values to Technology
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
Plural Publics
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
How AI could write our laws
ChatGPT and other AIs could supercharge the influence of lobbyists—but only if we let them.
Commentary
We Don’t Need to Reinvent our Democracy to Save it from AI
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.
Q+A
‘Generative CI’ through Collective Response Systems
How can many people (who may disagree) come together to answer a question or make a decision?
Digital Humanism: The Time Is Now
Digital humanism highlights the complex relationships between people, society, nature, and machines. It has been embraced by a growing community of individuals and groups who are setting directions that may change current paradigms. Here we focus on the initiatives generated by the Vienna Manifesto.
Commentary
How ChatGPT Hijacks Democracy
“… for all the consternation over the potential for humans to be replaced by machines in formats like poetry and sitcom scripts, a far greater threat looms: artificial intelligence replacing humans in the democratic processes — not through voting, but through lobbying.”