Who gets to decide what comes next?
AI is opening a new chapter in our technological lives. The decisions being made now will shape how we work, learn, relate to one another, and participate in public life. We believe people should have a meaningful voice in those decisions.
Declaring Our Tech Futures is an emerging coalition bringing people together to imagine the technological futures we want, and explore how we can shape them together.
There is no shortage of conversation about the technological futures we fear. We want to create space for people to articulate what they hope for, consider difficult choices together, and help guide what comes next.
We are exploring a national citizens’ assembly on AI in 2027: a process in which people from different backgrounds could learn, deliberate, and develop recommendations for our shared technological future. Alongside that exploration, we are building relationships across communities, civic organizations, and the technology world.
This work is at an early stage. We are inviting partners, advisors, and supporters to help shape the questions, the process, and the pathways through which public participation can influence real decisions.
Thirty years after John Perry Barlow’s A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (opens in a new tab), we are examining the lessons of the last three decades we can't afford to lose: what we want to carry forward, what needs rethinking, and how those lessons can help us shape the future in the age of AI. Amelia Rose Barlow and Amanda Arch are co-stewards of this initiative.
We are building a coalition of organizations and people committed to giving the public a meaningful voice in our technological future.
Early coalition partners include BLOOM and Declare Interdependence.
We welcome conversations with organizations interested in public deliberation, community participation, and the future of AI.
Explore joining the coalitionOn what have we learned, and the futures we want:
Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication, Stanford University
The counterculture rejected institutions. Our job is to rebuild what they turned away from and revive representative democracy.
Fred Turner is Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University, where he studies the impact of new media technologies on American culture since World War II. He is the author of five books, including most recently, with Mary Beth Meehan, Seeing Silicon Valley: Life Inside a Fraying America. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a LeBoff Distinguished Visiting Scholar at New York University, a Beaverbrook Visiting Scholar at McGill University, and twice a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. Before becoming a professor, he worked as a journalist for ten years. He continues to write regularly for newspapers and magazines in America and Europe.
Vice Chair UN AI for Good Impact Steering Committee
Mei Lin Fung is a globally recognized technology and policy leader, serving as Vice Chair of the UN AI for Good Impact Steering Committee and Chair of the IEEE SSIT Sustainability Committee. She co-founded the People-Centered Internet with Vint Cerf and co-founded the Nehitek Foundation with Michael MacFarland. Her career spans roles at Shell, Intel, and Oracle, where she was part of the original team that pioneered Customer Relationship Management systems.
She has co-authored numerous G7 Think Tank (Think7) policy briefs (2022–2025) on MSME financing, digital public infrastructure, and AI governance. Mei Lin served as socio-technical lead for the US Department of Defense’s Federal Health Futures project under Lt. Gen. Bruce Green, bringing Douglas Engelbart’s networked improvement communities into federal medicine.
Her current work emphasizes using Digital Public Infrastructure and securitization to finance MSMEs globally, while advancing inclusive science and AI governance. She serves as a bridge between technical communities (IEEE, ACM, ITU) with policy leaders worldwide. She is coordinating editor of the upcoming Springer Nature book on AI and the Future of Medical Decision Making: A Hippocratic Oath for the AI Age.
Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Making sure technology truly works for people is not a sprint or a marathon, but a relay race. The test of this moment is who we bring with us and who we don’t leave behind this time.
Nicole Ozer leads cutting-edge law and policy to advance rights, justice, and democracy and is a legal expert on artificial intelligence, privacy and surveillance, and digital speech.
Before becoming Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in June 2026, she had launched the Center for Constitutional Democracy at UC Law San Francisco as its Inaugural Executive Director and earlier was the founding Director and longtime leader of the Technology and Civil Liberties Program at the ACLU of Northern California.
Nicole was also a Technology and Human Rights Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, a Fellow at the Stanford Digital Civil Society Lab, a Visiting Researcher at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, and an intellectual property attorney at Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco.
Ozer is a trailblazer in public interest technology law. For more than two decades, she has led innovative work in the courts, in communities, with companies, and with policymakers to pass landmark laws, win critical cases, and build power for national and international change.
Ozer spearheaded the passage of the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA) and California Reader Privacy Act. She designed groundbreaking surveillance reform strategies now used across the United States and created and led the national online privacy campaign, Demand Your dotRights. She helped develop and lead a global coalition successfully fighting face surveillance. She has drafted influential amicus briefs on constitutional issues at all levels of state and federal court, including the California Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court. Nicole has written a wide variety of academic articles and policy papers and is frequently called upon for expert testimony, keynote presentations, and commentary in the press.
Ozer graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, studied comparative civil rights history at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and earned her J.D. with a Certificate in Law and Technology from Berkeley Law.
Ozer was honored in 2025 with a California Senate Members Resolution for unwavering dedication to defending and promoting civil liberties in the digital world, invaluable contributions to people throughout California, and meritorious service to humanity. Ozer has also been honored with the Fearless Advocate Award by the American Constitution Society, the Privacy Award by the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, and the James Madison Freedom of Information Award by the Society of Professional Journalists. Ozer has been recognized as a top Artificial Intelligence Lawyer by the Daily Journal, twice recognized as a Woman Leader in Tech Law by the California Legal Awards, and San Jose Magazine selected her as one of 20 “Women Making a Mark” in Silicon Valley.
Writer, artist, and musician
founder of Google’s Artists + Machine Intelligence program
If we gain the stars but lose our planet and biodiverse kin, we will have failed the great test that is the technological endeavor.
K Allado-McDowell is a writer, artist, musician, and a pioneering figure in the field of AI literature. Since 2020, they have authored several books with GPT-3, co-edited and contributed to multiple anthologies, and regularly publish essays on art, AI, and ecology.
K established the Artists + Machine Intelligence program at Google in 2015. They created the neuro-opera Song of the Ambassadors, which previewed at Lincoln Center in 2022. Their first solo exhibition, The Known Lost, was presented at Swiss Institute in NYC in 2025.
K has spoken at TED, The Long Now Foundation, New Museum, Tate, Serpentine Gallery, HKW, Moderna Museet, Christie’s, MacArthur Foundation, MfN Berlin, Ars Electronica, Sónar, and many other venues, and has taught at SCI-Arc, Strelka, and IAAC.
Managing Partner, Machina Ventures
Lecturer, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business
Director, Family Zone (ASX:FZO)
Matthew was Vice President, Business Operations and Strategy at Google, where he led and incubated strategic initiatives, especially mission-driven projects with high social impact. Over nine years with the company, he led efforts ranging from expanding internet access, developing clean energy, strengthening freedom of expression and democracy, innovating in robotics, establishing novel pricing strategies and extending Google’s footprint in emerging markets, especially Africa.
Prior to joining Google, Matthew was Vice President, Pharmacy for drugstore.com, a leading online health and beauty retailer, and Chief Operating Officer for WorldRes, an online hotel reservations network. He was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company for over 5 years, serving clients in the healthcare, financial services, energy and technology sectors. Prior to that, he was a systems consultant with Price Waterhouse. In addition, Matthew co-founded CyberJava, one of the first Internet cafes, and was a freelance software programmer from an early age.
Matthew holds a Juris Doctorate from UCLA School of Law, and is a member of the California State Bar. He has Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Engineering and Management from Case Western Reserve University. He is also a Lecturer at UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business. Matthew is a Director on the Board of Family Zone (ASX:FZO), a leading cyber security company keeping children safe.
Amelia brings 20+ years of strategy and movement-building experience, the legacy of her father, John Perry Barlow, and an exploration of the power of declarations to shape our collective imagination. She is helping convene a conversation across generations about what the early internet can teach us in the age of AI.
Amanda’s work spans Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., and East Africa. An entrepreneur and coalition builder, she most recently co-led Unlock Aid, a campaign to modernize foreign assistance. She brings experience connecting people, ideas, and institutions to turn shared ambition into action.
Help shape what comes next.
Whether you are interested in joining the coalition, contributing expertise, supporting the work, or simply staying connected, we would love to hear from you.
Thank you for reaching out. We’re glad to be connected.
Help build the foundation for a public voice in our technological future.
Your support will help us convene partners, develop the citizens’ assembly concept, and build the coordination and public engagement needed to move this exploration forward.
