[Paper Review] Democratising AI: Multiple Meanings, Goals, and Methods

Elizabeth Seger, Aviv Ovadya+3 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Mar 22, 2023

Ethics and Social Impacts of AI12 citations

TL;DR

The paper identifies four distinct notions of AI democratisation (use, development, profits, governance) and argues that governance is central to navigating trade-offs and risks across use, development, and profits.

ABSTRACT

Numerous parties are calling for the democratisation of AI, but the phrase is used to refer to a variety of goals, the pursuit of which sometimes conflict. This paper identifies four kinds of AI democratisation that are commonly discussed: (1) the democratisation of AI use, (2) the democratisation of AI development, (3) the democratisation of AI profits, and (4) the democratisation of AI governance. Numerous goals and methods of achieving each form of democratisation are discussed. The main takeaway from this paper is that AI democratisation is a multifarious and sometimes conflicting concept that should not be conflated with improving AI accessibility. If we want to move beyond ambiguous commitments to democratising AI, to productive discussions of concrete policies and trade-offs, then we need to recognise the principal role of the democratisation of AI governance in navigating tradeoffs and risks across decisions around use, development, and profits.

Motivation & Objective

• Clarify the multiple meanings of AI democratisation (use, development, profits, governance).
• Highlight conflicts and trade-offs among different democratisation goals.
• Argue that democratisation of AI governance should be central to policy discussions and risk management.

Proposed method

• Conceptual analysis of common interpretations of AI democratisation.
• Critical examination of goals and methods associated with each form of democratisation.
• Synthesis of how governance roles can mediate trade-offs across use, development, and profits.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What are the four commonly discussed forms of AI democratisation?
• RQ2 How do goals and methods for each form conflict or align with each other?
• RQ3 Why is governance central to navigating trade-offs and risks in AI?

Key findings

• AI democratisation is multifarious and sometimes conflicting across different goals.
• Methods and objectives for democratisation differ substantially by form (use, development, profits, governance).
• Governance democratisation plays a principal role in navigating trade-offs and risks across use, development, and profits.