Democratizing Al For The Public Good: Key Concepts And Recommendations

Al technology can be a powerful tool to advance the SDGs if designed, applied, and governed responsibly. Recent research shows that the Al infrastructure stack – from hardware to cloud infrastructure, data, models, and the application layer – is highly skewed towards a few companies, countries, and communities. At the same time, we see a move towards closed research and less transparency despite increased “open-washing”. These developments result in economic, social, and political challenges: limited innovation and quality; risks of bias and disinformation; digital extractivism; and a lack of democratic control and digital sovereignty. The policy brief outlines how the layers of Al democratization (use, development, benefit, governance) can be addressed. Specifically, the policy brief considers open- source Al as digital public goods instrumental for making progress toward Al democratization and accelerating the attainment of the SDGs. It focuses on: – Providing public Al infrastructure and developing a shared strategy for developing public generative Al models – Creating, curating, and governing high-value open data sets – Developing industry standards for the safe disclosure of model weights – Harmonizing Al governance for the public good