A Framework for Evaluating Barriers to the Democratization of Artificial Intelligence

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.