Genuinely Public AI

Abstract

The growing use of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) in public decision-making raises a host of concerns. In addition to impacting the rights and interests of individuals, the delegation of decision-making by government actors to increasingly autonomous AI systems could undermine the public character of the resulting decisions and erode vital democratic processes. To unpack this concern, we liken the use of AI technology in public decision-making to the outsourcing of government functions to private actors. Using this analytic lens, we make three contributions. First, by delineating the nature and scope of genuinely public decisions, we establish conditions for the legitimate use of autonomous AI systems in public institutions. Second, drawing on a fine-grained technical analysis of contemporary AI technology, we illustrate that autonomous systems rarely satisfy the conditions of legitimacy in practice. Third, we explore avenues for better satisfying these conditions of public decision-making and propose uses of AI that protect and even enhance democratic institutions.