Democracy Levels Framework: Success Criteria for Democratic AI

Civic Technology Community Group,

Hello. With respect to the measurement and analysis of democracy and civic engagement, I recently found an interesting resource maintained by the AI & Democracy Foundation<https://aidemocracyfoundation.org/> which I would like to share with the group.

The Democracy Levels Framework: https://democracylevels.org/framework/

This resource describes 6 levels:

L0: Unilateral decisions — no democratic aspects
L1: Informing decisions — decision-maker consults democratic outputs
L2: Specifying options — outputs are directly adoptable (also vetoable)
L3: Binding decisions — not vetoable
L4: Automatic initiation -- triggered on a regular cadence
L5: Metagovernance — adaptive with checks and balances

Its key design decisions include:


  *
Descriptive, Not Prescriptive: The framework describes governance arrangements without prescribing what level organizations should choose. Context determines appropriateness.
  *
Multiple Levels Simultaneously: Organizations can operate at different levels for different decision domains (e.g., L1 for ethics input, L4 for audit triggers).
  *
Quality Matters: A robust lower-level system is preferable to a fragile higher-level one. The dimensions help identify when systems are ready for more responsibility.


Best regards,
Adam Sobieski