The potential for catastrophic effects from the AI boom demands robust deliberation and real democratic governance. Localized initiatives like data center moratoria won't get us there.
How AI Destroys Institutions
Civic institutions—like the rule of law, higher education, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex s
Stop the AI Build-Out, Start the Fight
Across the country, working-class communities are rising up against Big Tech’s data center boom. A moratorium isn’t the end goal — it’s the only leverage we have to force real democratic control over artificial intelligence.
What does it mean for AI to be democratic?
Some pushback on a specific fuzzy idea with some ominous implications
How AI Destroys Institutions
Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies encourage cooperation and stability, while also adapting to changing circumstances. The real superpower of institutions is their ability to evolve and adapt within a hierarchy
Democracy x AI Cohort | Mozilla Foundation
The Democracy x AI cohort is founded on the hypothesis that, if built differently, AI could strengthen democracy rather than erode it.
Building Political Superintelligence
Amidst fears of dystopia, a blueprint for how we use AI to reinvent the way we govern ourselves
How Shifting Responsibility for AI Harms Undermines Democratic Accountability | TechPolicy.Press
The moralization of individual AI use deflects responsibility away from powerful actors like corporations and governments, Suvradip Maitra and others write.
Do AI Risks Require Extraordinary Government Intervention?
Let’s not skip the hard work of AI governance
Governments Can’t Agree on What AI Actually Is
Without clear definitions, governance is impossible.
From chatbots to assistants: governance is key for AI agents
AI's shift into agentic technology ushers in a new set of governance and security challenges that will mean defining to what extent they should be autonomous
Democracy Needs AI That Listens
From Taiwan's deliberative experiments to our own AI policy - featuring jdd-kami, the Civic AI that fits in a carry-on
Inside the Dirty, Dystopian World of AI Data Centers
The race to power AI is already remaking the physical world.
Five dimensions of scaling democratic deliberation: With and beyond AI
DemocracyNext's new paper on Five dimensions of scaling democratic deliberation: With and beyond AI
Separating AI’s Technological Problems From its Capitalism Problems
Nathan E. Sanders and Bruce Schneier say integrating a technology as disruptive as AI responsibly requires deep structural reforms.
Can AI Be Governed? Only If We Build Normatively Competent AI
Hadfield's discussion brings the idea of AI governance back to the core idea of steering the behavior of an AI system. As she notes, this not only involves technical questions about how AI systems ar...
From the Platform Society to the AI Society: Towards Critical Studies of Generative AI
The era of AI has begun. Generative AI is rapidly reshaping knowledge production, culture, and political authority, giving rise to an emerging AI society. Yet this transformation did not emerge ex nihilo. This paper argues that the AI society can only be understood in relation to the platform society from which it arises. Tracing the transition from platforms to AI, we identify interlinked economic, epistemic, and political shifts. Economically, AI emerges within platform-based rentier capitalism but reconfigures the monopoly mechanisms on which its accumulation depends. Epistemically, LLMs mark a shift from predictive to generative epistemics, entangling theory formation and knowledge production with private research-as-a-service infrastructures. Politically, governance shifts from data politics to alignment politics: from shaping visibility to shaping what can be said, thought, and imagined. Together, these transformations signal a qualitative shift in mediation—from governing interaction to governing cognition itself—and call for a Critical AI Studies.