Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI

As Korea aims to become a top-three global AI power, the government has staked its strategy on “sovereign AI” as both an economic and national security priority. In this reflection, originally published in the Herald Insight Collection, Merve Hickok examines Korea’s multibillion-dollar investment in a national foundation model amid U.S.–China competition and the rise of Open-Source AI, asking whether alternative investments—such as small language models, compute and energy efficiency, and AI governance and evaluation—might better secure Korea’s long-term autonomy and global leadership.

As the AIEP project concludes its first pilot in San Francisco, it offers more than a new AI tool for navigating IEPs. It shows what becomes possible when families, educators, designers, and researchers co-design technology from the ground up. Through a free, open-source tool, a civic AI learning course, a community-centered playbook, and academic research, this work demonstrates a practical model for public-purpose AI rooted in lived experience, shared learning, and accountability. What began as support for parents has grown into a blueprint for building AI with communities, not just for them.

Leaders increasingly believe public engagement matters, but lack the practical know-how to do it well. Beth Simone Noveck and Dane Gambrell examine how institutions use AI and collective intelligence to engage the public at scale. Across countries and levels of government, engagement can move from performative to consequential when institutions build the capacity to design it well. That work now comes together in a new free course, Designing Democratic Engagement for the AI Era, created by InnovateUS, The GovLab, and the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, to help public professionals turn these lessons into practice.