Epistemic rights in the age of artificial intelligence

Executive summary

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years has raised justified concerns about the concentration of power in international AI development in the hands of a small group of tech companies that possess the largest technological and financial resources. The fear is that these companies can dictate the direction of AI development without broad consultation with other stakeholders.

This memorandum addresses AI development from the perspective of epistemic, or informational, power. The concentration of epistemic power in AI development is as serious a problem for democratic societies as the concentration of economic and technological power. This is because technology giants make many decisions when developing AI, decisions that have far-reaching ecological, ethical, social, or societal impacts.

To ensure that these decisions are made more transparently in the future and considering the overall benefit of society, democratic societies should dismantle the epistemic inequality that has entrenched itself in AI development and strengthen citizens’ AI agency. This memorandum presents a framework for epistemic rights, which provides democratic societies and various organisations with ways to begin this work. The original framework was developed by Professor Emiritus of Communication Hannu Nieminen, but in this memorandum, the framework has been adapted to better fit the context of AI development.

The framework for epistemic rights helps to concretely illustrate how the epistemic power accumulated by large tech companies weakens the AI understanding of other societal actors and narrows citizens’ opportunities to influence the decisions made in connection with AI development. At the same time, the examination of epistemic rights helps various societal actors – such as public administration, educational institutions, media, or companies adopting AI – to see how they can strengthen and protect epistemic rights in the emerging AI era through their own actions.

The framework for epistemic rights consists of four rights:

1. Access to information: Everyone should have equal access to relevant and truthful information about AI development and use.
2. Competence and skills: Everyone should be guaranteed equal opportunities to understand the possibilities and challenges involved in AI development. People must be able to protect personal or societal interests based on this understanding.
3. Participation: Everyone should be given equal opportunities to influence the public discussion and decision-making regarding the value base, direction, and impacts of AI development.
4. Freedom from coercion and undue influence: Everyone should be guaranteed equal opportunities to form opinions about emerging AI, free from coercion or manipulation by those who hold the greatest epistemic power.