The "democratization" of AI has been taken up as a primary goal by several major tech companies. However, these efforts resemble earlier "freeware" and "open access" initiatives, and it is unclear how or whether they are informed by political conceptions of democratic governance. A political formulation of the democratization of AI is thus necessary. This paper presents a framework for the democratic governance of technology through intelligent trial and error (ITE) that can be utilized to evaluate barriers to the democratization of AI and suggest strategies for overcoming them.

My dissertation asks two fundamental questions: What are the risks of AI? And what should be done about them? My research goes beyond existential threats to humanity to consider seven dimensions of AI risk: military, political, economic, social, environmental, psychophysiological, and spiritual. I examine extant AI risk mitigation strategies and, finding them insufficient, use a democratic governance framework to propose alternatives. This paper outlines the project and introduces the risk dimensions.