WORK
A Roadmap for Governing AI
Allen's 2025 policy paper presenting seventeen specific recommendations for AI governance organized around the framework of power-sharing liberalism.
The paper translates Allen's theoretical framework into concrete institutional proposals. The recommendations range from federal licensing of firms leading AI development to AI offices in state governments to enhance accountability to regulatory frameworks that address distributional consequences. What unifies them is a commitment to governance that is 'not merely a reactive, punitive, status-quo-defending enterprise, but rather the expression of an expansive, proactive vision for technology—to advance human flourishing.' The paper stands as one of the most comprehensive contemporary attempts to apply democratic theory to the specific institutional challenges AI poses.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The paper emerged from Allen's work with the GETTING-Plurality research network at Harvard and reflects sustained engagement with technologists, policymakers, and democratic theorists across the preceding four years. Its seventeen recommendations are organized across multiple levels of governance—federal, state, local, and transnational—reflecting Allen's insistence that AI governance requires a multi-layered institutional architecture no single level can provide alone.
The federal-level proposals include licensing requirements for firms developing frontier AI models,