The recent corporate drama at Open AI, with the firing of its CEO Sam Altman by its board only to be reinstated days later, highlights the weakness of corporations, caught up in internal politics, when it comes to dealing with the risks around artificial intelligence. But governments are also not the answer, sluggish and bureaucratic they are always behind their  regulations always playing catch up. Instead, democratic accountability of AI companies through citizens' assemblies is the way forward, argue Hélène Landemore and John Tasioulas.

The drama of the last week at OpenAI has been entertaining, to say the least. But it also signals that it is high time to have a conversation about AI politics and, specifically, the governance of AI companies, perhaps as distinct from any other type of corporate governance or perhaps as an inspiration for all companies going forward.

OpenAI is legally structured as a non-profit devoted to the development of AI for the benefit of humanity. The legal status is meant to prevent economic goals from trumping human interests, which is reassuring in theory. Preserving human interests might well have been the motivation for the original board firing Altman in the first place (at least according to some reports).