At a time when corporate and government policies were starting to unravel hard-won progress on representation, Aspen Digital convened a roundtable Tech, Democracy, and Marginalized Communities: Where Do We Go From Here? It was a critical conversation at a critical time. The gathering brought together a diverse coalition of stakeholders—civil rights leaders, community advocates, academics, technology executives, and AI entrepreneurs—to explore the intersection of democracy and the future of AI. Despite our varied perspectives on tech’s impacts on marginalized communities and democratic processes, we converged around a fundamental principle: the need to create authentic collaboration and dialogue between impacted communities and technology innovators.
What was so clear to me throughout the arc of our conversations that day–from the formal panel sessions to the casual banter–is that we stand at a critical inflection point where specific decisions about AI governance, platform regulation, and data protection will directly determine who participates in our democracy and how.
Transcending Grievance Politics
We also wrestled with that central question of where do we go from here. Tech executive TB Bardlavens eloquently noted that our collective work should transcend “grievance politics.” Rather, it must focus on building products that represent our diverse world, ensuring digital products are “useful, usable, and accessible” for a global community. As Bardlavens has written previously, “Our work is about building brand love and scaling the business while also co-creating with community—with our past, present and future customers—to drive deep insights and broad product innovation.” These words articulate why community engagement is so needed in tech product design and why product equity is foundational to innovation. Democracy and the future of AI are inextricably tied together, each reinforcing the power of the other.
“Our work is about building brand love and scaling the business while also co-creating with community—with our past, present and future customers—to drive deep insights and broad product innovation.“
TB Bardlavens, tech executive