Policy Brief
Researchers and funders should redirect focus from centralized autonomous general intelligence to a plurality of established and emerging approaches that extend cooperative and augmentative traditions as seen in successes such as Taiwan’s digital democracy project to collective intelligence platforms like Wikipedia.
The dominant vision of artificial intelligence imagines a future of large-scale autonomous systems outperforming humans in an increasing range of fields. This “actually existing AI” vision misconstrues intelligence as autonomous rather than social and relational. It is both unproductive and dangerous, optimizing for artificial metrics of human replication rather than for systemic augmentation, and tending to concentrate power, resources, and decision-making in an engineering elite. Alternative visions based on participating in and augmenting human creativity and cooperation have a long history and underlie many celebrated digital technologies such as personal computers and the internet. Researchers and funders should redirect focus from centralized autonomous general intelligence to a plurality of established and emerging approaches that extend cooperative and augmentative traditions as seen in successes such as Taiwan’s digital democracy project to collective intelligence platforms like Wikipedia. We conclude with a concrete set of recommendations and a survey of alternative traditions.
Additional Resource
Creating a healthy digital civic infrastructure ecosystem means not just deploying technology for the sake of efficiency, but thoughtfully designing tools built to enhance democratic engagement from connection to action.
Commentary
Last week’s leak of the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” sparked intense reactions across the academic world sparking both criticism and support. Critics say it would be government overreach and a threat to free expression while supporters say it could be something that could serve as a catalyst for meaningful reform, offering universities and policymakers a chance to rebuild trust and redefine the nation’s partnership with higher education. Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Democratic Knowledge Project and of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation gives her take.
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.
Additional Resource
Creating a healthy digital civic infrastructure ecosystem means not just deploying technology for the sake of efficiency, but thoughtfully designing tools built to enhance democratic engagement from connection to action.
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.
