What is public AI?
Public AI is AI as public infrastructure: provisioned like electricity, water, roads, libraries, or the Internet itself.
- Public AI is publicly accessible: ensuring AI delivers benefits to all.
- Public AI is publicly accountable: ensuring AI reflects society’s values.
- Public AI creates permanent public goods: ensuring AI is a reliable foundation.
- Public AI is being designed and built right now — all around the world.
Learn more about our definition
Why do we need public AI?
- Limited public capacity in AI is stifling our collective capacity to shape the direction of society.
- AI is becoming essential infrastructure, like roads and water pipelines - fitting for the public sector.
- AI systems are growing in power and should reflect society’s values, not the values of shareholders.
- Private companies have a head start. Without investment in public capacity now, the gap will grow.
Learn more about the policy case here
Who we are
The Public AI Network (PAINT) is a growing coalition working to bring about public AI. We aim to:
- Ensure public capacity-building is part of the conversation about AI design, policy, and funding
- Make it easier to build public AI by coordinating research efforts in the ML community
- Support policymakers and technical teams seeking to implement public AI
- Organize the broader movement for public AI
We host a Slack community which connects together experts from leading public AI labs, projects, and civil society groups. We also host many events (see below) and a regular seminar series that shares insights from leaders in the field such as Yoshua Bengio, Diane Coyle, Lawrence Lessig, and Kim Stanley Robinson.
Learn more
- 2024 White Paper, currently the best overview of Public AI
- NeurIPS 2023 Workshop Paper and poster, intended for the ML community
- Ongoing Seminar notes & recordings
Getting involved
Public AI is a public, collaborative effort.
- For questions about public AI or to get involved, sign up for the newsletter or contact us!
- We’re recruiting for specific roles, and always intereseted in working with aligned groups.
- Our original wiki document describing public AI is publicly-editable. Suggestions welcome.
- To edit this site (e.g. to add an event or document), visit our GitHub.
Events
Upcoming events
Upcoming events are being planned in Zurich and Los Angeles.
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 9, 2025 | the first Public AI quarterly call | Online |
| Sep-Oct, 2025 | Public AI Inference Utility makes Apertus accessible during Swiss AI Weeks. | Online |
Past events
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 31, 2025 | Public AI: Policy, Community, & the Future of National Labs. TPC 2025 | San Jose, CA |
| Jul 16, 2025 | Oh Canada! A Public AI Happy Hour at ICML 2025 | Vancouver, Canada |
| Apr 26, 2025 | Public AI Dinner & Salon at ICLR 2025 | Singapore |
| Apr 24-25, 2025 | Commercializing Public AI at Barcelona Supercomputing Center | Barcelona, Spain |
| Apr-Jun, 2025 | Public AI Seminar Series, Season 3 🎬 | Online |
| Feb 12-15, 2025 | AI Action II at Chateau du Fey | Joigny, France |
| Feb 11, 2025 | ⭐ Public AI Congress and Public AI House at AI Action Summit | Paris, France |
| Oct 17-20, 2024 | mAIfuture at the Cambridge Innovation Center | Warsaw, Poland |
| Oct 2, 2024 | Designing Public AI at the Rockefeller Foundation | Washington, DC |
| Aug 13-14, 2024 | ⭐ Building a More Public AI Ecosystem | Library of Congress |
| Aug-Oct, 2024 | Public AI Seminar Series, Season 2 🎬 | Online |
| Jul 24, 2024 | Public AI Social #4 (+ Fishing Expedition) | ICML 2024 |
| Jul 15-21, 2024 | AI Palace 2024 | Bückeburg Palace |
| Mar 13, 2024 | Public Visions for AI Workshop | Newspeak House |
| Jan-Feb, 2024 | Public AI Seminar Series, Season 1 🎬 | Online |
| Jan 8, 2024 | Public & Civic AI Social #3 | Newspeak House |
| Dec 14, 2023 | Public AI Dinner Party | NeurIPS 2023 |
| Nov 16, 2023 | Public & Civic AI Social #2 | Newspeak House |
| Oct 17, 2023 | Public & Civic AI Social #1 | Newspeak House |
| Sep 21, 2023 | Talk at AI: Ethical Paths Forward | Internet Archive |
| Sep 14, 2023 | Public AI Seminar | NYU Engelberg Ctr |
| Jul 3-10, 2023 | AI Palace 2023 | Bückeburg Palace |
Acknowledgements
A wide range of people have contributed ideas and time to the movement for public AI. We gratefully acknowledge operational support by Metagov, Aspen Digital, Open Future, Public Knowledge, Code for Science and Society, Mozilla, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Internet Archive, Chatham House, the Berkman Klein Center, the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, and many more organizations.
License
Work in this repository is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.