Building AI with democratic values

POLICYMAKERS describe their visions for artificial intelligence with statements of values. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has argued that liberal democratic countries should develop and govern AI in a way that "upholds our democratic values" and combats "the horrors of techno-authoritarianism." Congressional Republicans have urged the development of AI in a manner "consistent with democratic values."

Initial attempts to realize these visions have defined guiding principles for AI systems that support democratic values. These principles, such as accountability, robustness, fairness and beneficence, have enjoyed broad consensus despite the very different constituencies and values of their creators. But despite being sold as supporting "democratic values," these exact same principles are centered in AI policy documents of non-democratic states such as China.

This discrepancy between the rhetoric of conflict used to describe "democratic" and "authoritarian" visions for AI and the broad agreement on high-level statements of principles points to three steps policymakers must take to develop and govern AI in a way that truly supports democratic values.

First, calls for developing AI with democratic values must engage with the many different conceptions of what "democracy" entails. If policymakers mean that AI should strengthen electoral democracy, they could start at home by investing in, for instance, the use of algorithmic tools to combat gerrymandering. If policymakers mean that AI should respect fundamental rights, they should enshrine protections in law - and not turn a blind eye to questionable applications (such as surveillance technology) developed by domestic businesses. If policymakers mean that AI should help build a more just society, they should ensure that citizens do not need to become AI experts to have a say in how technology is used.

Without more precise definitions, lofty political statements about democratic values in AI too often take a back seat to narrower considerations of economic, political and security competition. AI is often seen as being at the core of economic growth and national security, creating incentives to overlook holistic values in favor of strengthening domestic industries. The use of AI to mediate access to information, such as on social media, positions AI as a central facet of political competition.

Unfortunately, as rhetoric and the perceived importance of winning these economic, security and political competitions escalate, values-questionable uses of AI become increasingly easy to justify. In the process, imprecisely defined democratic values for AI can be coopted and corrupted, or become little more than cover for hollow geopolitical interests.

Second, consensus AI principles are so flexible that they can accommodate broadly-opposed visions for AI, making them unhelpful in communicating or enforcing democratic values. Take the principle that AI systems should be able to explain their decision-making processes in human-understandable ways. This principle is commonly said to uphold a "democratic" vision of AI. But these explanations can be conceptualized and created in many ways, each of which confers benefits and power to very different groups. An explanation provided to an end user within a legal context that allows them to hold developers accountable for harm, for example, can empower people impacted by AI systems. However, most explanations are in fact produced and consumed internally by AI companies, positioning developers as judge and jury in deciding how (and whether) to remedy the problems that explanations identify. To uphold democratic values - promoting, for instance, equal access and public participation in technology governance - policymakers must define a much more prescriptive vision for how principles like explainability should be implemented.

\