Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI

Ted Dintersmith and Beth Simone Noveck argue that America’s high school math curriculum remains rooted in the needs of the 19th century rather than the AI era. They call for replacing an emphasis on rote procedures with quantitative reasoning, statistics, probability, and decision-making skills that people actually use. The authors propose using AI to engage thousands of students, educators, parents, and employers in redesigning math education through large-scale, democratic public participation.

Across elections, work, and education, AI is performing more of the reasoning people once had to do themselves. But the institutions built for a world where humans did that reasoning haven't caught up. This week, candidates learned how to influence chatbot answers before voters ever reach a website. Amazon cut another 14,000 jobs while investing heavily in AI. And a Massachusetts school district doubled down on teaching students the rote mathematics AI already performs better than humans. Meanwhile, new global data suggest AI increasingly rewards judgment while automating routine work. Reboot will take some time off in August, so an extra hefty News that Caught Our Eye this week

The debate about AI has focused on misinformation and AI slop, but those are only part of the story. As AI creates both unprecedented information abundance and information compression, we need a new conception of information literacy—one that encompasses how individuals reason, how communities learn together, and how democratic institutions use AI to become better listeners and problem-solvers.