This policy brief focuses on short-term action (2026-2028) around AI governance and provides practical guidelines for experts and policymakers. It introduces a framework that embeds democratic pillars — participation, freedom, equality, transparency, knowledge, and the rule of law — directly into the entire AI lifecycle.

This section considers how people’s autonomy and free will are hindered or supported by past and present KTs. By focusing on the structural level, we will examine systemic issues such as monopolies over KTs, data extraction and colonialism, labour, and political participation.

This section analyses how different knowledge technologies impact people’s creativity. Here creativity is intended as the ability to express themselves in a way that is both truthful to what they feel and believe, as well as the power to experiment with artistic creation.

2.1    Equality

Equality is by-and-large considered both a positive aspect of democracy, and a necessary feature for democracy.

This section presents the KT4D serious game, an interactive tool to engage players with ethical dilemmas surrounding advanced knowledge technologies.

There are both instrumental and intrinsic reasons to value democracy. In short, democracy is valuable instrumentally because