First steps to Collaborative and Democratic AI Development in the High-Tech Heartland of Eindhoven, the Netherlands

By Jorim Theuns

Deliberation at Scale: A team of passionate people: NGOs, businesses, and local community leaders is elated to announce that they are one of ten teams globally to win OpenAI's grant Democratic inputs to AI. This collaborative effort aims to enable all of us to share what we care about and to collaborate to create rules for AI systems, addressing the shortcomings of current practices and underscoring the need for more diverse perspectives and people-centric technology.

Shaping the future of AI is daunting and exhilarating. This partnership signifies an important step in the evolution of AI's societal impacts, propelling a more responsive, adaptive, and wholesome technological transformation. We're prepared to push the envelope and stoke a lively conversation on what this change means for everyday people.

Amid the stiff competition of 800 candidates globally, our team stands humbled and inspired, eager to launch into the hard work of building the technological systems that will turn thousands of challenging conversations into tools for AI alignment. We're cognizant of the fact that the tough task ahead extends beyond the grant; this challenge is embedded in the social and political challenges core to deliberative democratic practice. As our co-founder Evelien's seminal thesis suggests, participatory practices, especially those enabled by digital tools, have suffered historically from apathy, low engagement, lack of trust, and barriers to entry.

That is why, in this crucial development stage, we're throwing our doors open to individuals from all walks of life, insight, and perspective, especially from the Eindhoven region as that is where our experiments will take place, to enrich our endeavor. The skeptical, the apathetic, those who feel sidelined by technological advancement, your voices are vital to our purpose. The goal here is not just to work for you, but more importantly, with you. We believe in the potency of collective intelligence to address long-standing challenges, fostering participatory design, and promoting democratic alignment.

We are going to build this in public: Our winning application is open for critical feedback and review here: Socially democratic inputs to AI

Press Contacts

Dembrane founding team

Consortium members