Democracy has a listening problem. These AI tools could actually help
Article by Beth Noveck: “For decades, many scholars and policymakers have treated public participation as a problem to be managed rather than a resource to be cultivated. This “realist” view, which gained prominence after World War II with the growth of money in politics, treated participation as destabilizing. Many academics even challenged the notion that ordinary Americans have the time, competence, or capacity to participate, writing off the public as incapable.
This skepticism has led institutions to design consultation processes more as exercises in public relations than as genuine attempts to share power. And when we evaluate democratic innovations, it leads us to focus on metrics like participation rates rather than actual policy impact.
Brazil’s experience suggests that participation becomes meaningful only when it is connected to decision-making. What makes this moment different is that artificial intelligence may finally give institutions the capacity to hear, organize, and act on public input at a scale that was previously impossible.
Unlike earlier Web-based platforms that only expanded the volume of talking, we can use AI to make sense of the collective intelligence of our communities and uncover better ways to connect participation to decisions and action.
The challenge is no longer getting people to speak. It is building institutions capable of listening.
(Adapted fromReboot: AI and The Race to Save Democracy, Yale University Press, 2026.)…(More)”.
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