Strategy update from reframe[Tech]: Four missions for more common good in the digital age

Over the past two years, there has been remarkable progress in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Previously, we had to explain why the technology is relevant; today, we need to inform so that discussions don’t exclusively revolve around generative AI.  In light of these changes, we have updated our strategy for the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s reframe[Tech] project for the next eighteen months.

We live in an era marked by hype in which a few tech companies, empowered by network effects, the commercialization of attention, and the data they gather, dominate the discourse, scientific research, and economic use of digital technologies like never before. They largely shape how AI is perceived and discussed, which ranges from utopian fantasies to dystopian horror scenarios. However, the voices highlighting the real potentials and opportunities, as well as the tangible and measurable consequences of everyday discrimination by AI systems, environmental pollution, and poor working conditions in the global south, are rarely heard.

This coincides with an unprecedented financial arms race among a few tech companies in infrastructure, AI companies, and the development of their products. In 2024, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft alone are expected to spend $200 billion on new AI investments, an amount that surpasses the annual GDP of 139 countries. These investments are not neutral. They are missing in places that do not glitter in the light of the AI ​​hype, and they create a massive demand for energy and raw materials.

As a result, the privatization of digital future technologies continues to increase, while public or decentralized infrastructures remain niche phenomena. Observing other countries shows us how dangerous it can be to place critical infrastructures and sensitive decisions in the hands of a few centralized actors, whether private or state-owned.

In collaboration with partners, we aim to counter these alarming conditions with a common-good-oriented vision in which a responsible digital society advocates for the development and implementation of ethical, widely accessible, and common-good-oriented digital technologies. It is imperative that we develop decentralized, public infrastructures and user-oriented offerings as alternatives to the dominant, profit-driven tech giants. Only in this way can data protection, transparency, access equality, sustainability, and participation be achieved, thereby strengthening user trust and involvement. To move closer to this vision, we pursue four key missions:

First, we will intensify our efforts to strengthen digital public infrastructure. Building on our work in platform design, such as shaping recommendation algorithms, we will also examine the data foundations of foundational models.

To provide meaningful common-good-oriented alternatives to the currently dominant tech companies, an active state is needed – one that is aware of its power in using digital technologies, sets fair rules, and invests in critical areas. This requires public administration employees to have a broad and deep understanding of technological developments and their societal impacts. Building on our foundational work on relevant AI competencies in the public sector, we will develop specific tools to facilitate low-threshold access to strengthening skills in administration.

This is crucial because public administration employees will increasingly use digital technologies in their work, and state institutions must ensure the responsible oversight of these systems. The European AI Act requires the negotiated framework conditions to be implemented by 2026. In this timeframe it will be determined how constructive or challenging the regulation will be implemented. Since the AI regulation takes a horizontal approach, translating it into the context of the German sectoral supervision poses a particular challenge. We will focus on achieving a user-friendly and less bureaucratic implementation of the AI regulation in Germany through evaluative studies and by creating spaces for exchange and experimentation.

In the past two years, we have also created spaces for exchange and experimentation in the context of innovations in the social economy. This is because Germany’s social services – in areas like elderly care, childcare, or social counseling – are carried out by actors with limited resources to develop innovations together with their employees and clients. To keep our welfare state capable of action and innovation, resources, time, and creativity are needed. However, budget cuts are being made at all levels that hinder future security and weaken democracy. And where self-determination and optimism are scarce, people turn to extreme and simplistic “solutions.” Therefore, in the coming months, we will promote efforts that provide common-good-oriented organizations more opportunity to pursue innovation. This requires recognition in both politics and organizations of how beneficial digital experts can be within the structures of the social economy.

In addition to tech companies that influence large parts of the population through profit-driven algorithms, authoritarian states have also recognized the advantages of digital surveillance technologies. Both put democratic systems under increasing pressure. We see these developments as a call to amplify underrepresented voices in the discourse. We aim to counter excessive AI optimism with evidence and focus more on concrete progress for specific sectors and industries rather than speculative hype scenarios. Our goal is to prevent digital transformation from further exacerbating existing inequalities. Together with partners, we strive to design digital technologies that are more inclusive and just, and to promote their use for the common good.