Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI

The current controversy over the Pentagon’s AI contracts reveals a deeper issue: governments are shaping the AI market through procurement in the wrong ways or not at all, failing to make demands that AI strengthen democracy and improve governance. As AI becomes core public infrastructure, public institutions must use their purchasing power deliberately by requiring portability, accountability, and interoperability and prioritizing use in the public interest. This post explains the public conversation we are having about public and democratic AI andhow governments can buy, build, and govern AI on the public’s terms.

This week on Reboot Democracy, Beth Simone Noveck explores how governments can provide safe, affordable access to AI at scale, arguing that the real question is not buy versus build, but who controls the infrastructure. In Research Radar, she examines academic warnings about uncritical adoption and reframes the challenge as one of power and oversight. Luca Cominassi and Beth Simone Noveck then argue that sovereignty and regulation mean little without institutional capacity. Beyond Reboot, Washington, DC, ties AI training to procurement; Colorado debates data center safeguards, Stanford HAI researchers clarify what AI sovereignty requires, and new evidence shows little electoral penalty for AI-enabled deception. NPR examines bot swarms and the U.S. Department of Labor releases a national AI literacy framework.

Building domestic AI systems or reducing reliance on big tech is not the same as making AI work for the public. Examples such as Spain’s ALIA project, the EU AI Act, and Italy’s new AI law show that ownership and regulation go only so far. What really matters is whether public institutions have the people, skills, and authority to oversee these systems once they’re in use.