Artificial Intelligence and the Political Legitimacy of Global Governance

Abstract

Although the concept of “AI governance” is frequently used in the debate, it is still rather undertheorized. Often it seems to refer to the mechanisms and structures needed to avoid “bad” outcomes and achieve “good” outcomes with regard to the ethical problems artificial intelligence is thought to actualize. In this article we argue that, although this outcome-focused view captures one important aspect of “good governance,” its emphasis on effects runs the risk of overlooking important procedural aspects of good AI governance. One of the most important properties of good AI governance is political legitimacy. Starting out from the assumptions that AI governance should be seen as global in scope and that political legitimacy requires at least a democratic minimum, this article has a twofold aim: to develop a theoretical framework for theorizing the political legitimacy of global AI governance, and to demonstrate how it can be used as a compass for critially assessing the legitimacy of actual instances of global AI governance. Elaborating on a distinction between “governance by AI” and “governance of AI” in relation to different kinds of authority and different kinds of decision-making leads us to the conclusions that much of the existing global AI governance lacks important properties necessary for political legitimacy, and that political legitimacy would be negatively impacted if we handed over certain forms of decision-making to artificial intelligence systems.

Discourses and bottom‐up policymaking in Europe and the EU

“…AI is the newest among the mentioned challenges and is subject to increased attention in public policy research. Several articles tackle AI by analyzing the national or global governance of AI technologies (Büthe et al, 2022; Erman & Furendal, 2022; Radu, 2021; Robles & Mallinson, 2023b; Taeihagh, 2021; Ulnicane & Erkkilä, 2023), including the setting of standards (von Ingersleben‐Seip, 2023), the perceptions by citizens and relevance of public trust (Ingrams et al, 2021; Robles & Mallinson, 2023a; Schiff et al, 2023) or the impact of AI “on the ground” (Brunn et al, 2020; Selten et al, 2023). Following this recent rise in interest in AI, Lemke et al (2024) tie in with a contribution that methodologically relies on discourse analysis (Newman & Mintrom, 2023) and opens this issue by a comprehensive depiction of the German discourse on AI.…”

“…人工智能(AI)是上述挑战中最新的一个，并且在公共政策研究中受到越来越多的关注。几篇文章通过分析AI技术的国家治理或全球治理来探讨AI问题(Büthe et al, 2022; Erman & Furendal, 2022; Radu, 2021; Robles & Mallinson, 2023b; Taeihagh, 2021; Ulnicane & Erkkilä, 2023)，包括标准的制定(von Ingersleben‐Seip, 2023)、公民的感知以及公共信任的相关性(Ingrams et al, 2021; Robles & Mallinson, 2023a; Schiff et al, 2023)或AI的“实地”影响(Brunn et al, 2020; Selten et al, 2023)。随着近期兴起的AI兴趣，Lemke et al(2024)撰写的文章在方法上依靠话语分析(Newman & Mintrom, 2023)，并通过对德国AI话语的全面描述来开启本期内容。他们的系统分析包括来自不同利益攸关方的6421份声明，聚焦于AI是如何被定义和建构为一个政策问题。分析表明，AI（仍然）被视为一个主要与技术相关的问题，因此被置于技术和创新的政策部门。因此，尽管众多利益攸关方对问题的建构和定义增加了问题定义的不确定性，但AI问题并不是一个围绕公民权利、劳工或教育的主导问题。此外，话语强调了国际合作的必要性。…”

“…La inteligencia artificial (IA) es el más nuevo de los desafíos mencionados y está sujeto a una mayor atención en la investigación de políticas públicas. Varios artículos abordan la IA analizando la gobernanza nacional o global de las tecnologías de IA (Büthe et al, 2022; Erman & Furendal, 2022; Radu, 2021; Robles & Mallinson, 2023b; Taeihagh, 2021; Ulnicane & Erkkilä, 2023), incluido el establecimiento de estándares (von Ingersleben‐Seip, 2023), las percepciones de los ciudadanos y la relevancia de la confianza pública (Ingrams et al, 2021; Robles & Mallinson, 2023a; Schiff, Schiff, Adams, McCrain y Mourtgos, 2023) o el impacto de la IA “sobre el terreno” (Brunn, Diefenbacher, Courtet y Genieys, 2020; Selten, Robeer y Grimmelikhuijsen, 2023). Tras este reciente aumento del interés en la inteligencia artificial, Lemke, Trein y Varone (2024) se vinculan con una contribución que se basa metodológicamente en el análisis del discurso (Newman & Mintrom, 2023) y abre este número con una descripción integral del discurso alemán sobre AI.…”

The democratization of global AI governance and the role of tech companies

“…Moreover, when the democratization of AI governance is discussed, a common approach is to evaluate proposals by whether they can successfully prevent 'bad' outcomes such as AI bias or existential risks, or make 'good' outcomes such as increased economic productivity more likely (Erman and Furendal 2022a). Likewise, the public discussion about AI regulation tends to focus on the pros, cons, and viability of concrete proposals, such as whether AI development should be put on hold, to allow research into the impact of AI to catch up (Future of Life Institute, 2023), or whether we should create a new global institution akin to the International Atomic Energy Agency (Altman, Brockman, and Sutskever 2023).…”

A multidomain relational framework to guide institutional AI research and adoption

“…Normative Domain The meaning and uses of concepts in the normative domain, the final domain we propose, collectively relate to the entitlements, values, and principles of political morality that stakeholders and affected parties hold towards a particular algorithmic system or institutional AI in general. The term 'political morality' is used here to refer to normative principles and ideals regulating and structuring the political domain [7].…”