Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI

Boston Globe: Are local governments, like Boston’s, using AI enough?

From Curiosity to Capability: What We Learned From Training 250,000 Public Servants on AI

Government agencies are buying AI tools, but helping public servants use them well takes more than access. The first report from InnovateUS’ Observatory of Public Sector AI shows where workers need help: understanding how AI fits their jobs, learning to use it, and knowing what’s allowed. The findings on confidence after training are encouraging. The bigger question—and the Observatory’s next challenge—is whether learning has an impact on everyday work and improves services for residents.

Voters weigh doing their election homework with AI

Beth Simone Noveck spoke to Marketplace about how voters can use AI to interrogate their own views and deepen civic conversations about the issues on their ballot, not decide for them.

Reboot Weekly: Can A.I. Be Good for Democracy?

New Jersey’s AI tool reached 106,000 more eligible children for summer food benefits, matching records across programs so no family had to fill out a form. In The New York Times, Beth Simone Noveck draws on that case, California’s post-wildfire listening tool, and the UK’s Consult platform that sorted 50,000 public comments in two hours to argue that AI can repair broken institutions and restore public trust. Also this week: Anirudh Dinesh traces today’s AI hype back to the 1920s invention of “halitosis,” Trump launches America.gov as a federal AI front door, and Newsom signs seven of nine union-backed AI bills.

How A.I. Can Be Good for Democracy

In a New York Times guest essay, Beth Simone Noveck makes the case for putting A.I. behind every public servant. She draws on examples from New Jersey, California, the U.K., South Korea and South Australia, and calls for three investments: training the public workforce, giving workers secure access to multiple models, and using government purchasing power to build open, accountable A.I.

Project Spotlight: Engaged California — Wildfire Recovery Action Planning

After the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, California's Office of Data and Innovation used Engaged California to gather more than 1,300 resident comments. AI helped turn that input into 19 policy options, which residents then deliberated over and ranked. Jeffery Marino explains how clear ownership, with state agencies, local governments, and community groups acting together with support from the Governor's office, turned those priorities into a five-part recovery action plan.

The Halitosis of Our Times

The Hugging Face incident wasn't a rogue AI escaping its sandbox. It was a chain of poor human decisions. We need to stop talking about AI like mythology and start treating it like engineering.

The $170 billion lesson data center developers keep learning the hard way

Governors from Healey to Shapiro now say data centers need local buy-in, but they haven't said what a community "yes" actually looks like. Since 2024, at least 46 projects representing more than $170 billion have been blocked, withdrawn, or stalled, often because engagement started after the key decisions were made and benefits were whatever developers chose to offer. Deals in West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania show the terms can be negotiated, but only if states give communities the capacity to take part: early information, independent expertise, and a process that developers can pay for without owning.

Reboot Weekly: 46 Blocked Data Centers, NYC's AI Report, and Anthropic's Watchlist

At least 46 AI data center projects — more than $170 billion in announced investment — have been blocked, withdrawn, or stalled since 2024 following community opposition. In this week's Reboot piece, Beth Simone Noveck and Deborah Stine argue trust is the infrastructure data centers are missing, and developers can pay for the community conversation without owning it. Rutgers' National AI Opinion Monitor shows why: AI adoption hit 72% in August while worry climbed to 50% and anger to 30%. NYC's Public Advocate has called for an AI bill of rights; the Maldives' Prosecutor General now requires courtroom disclosure of AI use; and The American Prospect reports Anthropic has been running a predictive surveillance system that flagged suspected dissenters to police.

Project Spotlight: Co-Designing an AI Tool with Communities

California's AI-EP project made parents co-designers of an AI tool that makes their children's education plans easier to understand. More than 200 families joined the first pilot and came away better able to advocate for their kids. It shows that who you choose to include shapes who the tool serves.

Project Spotlight: What Could BG Be? How Warren County, Kentucky Turned 8,000 Voices into a 25-Year Plan

Ben Peterson, Executive Director of the City-County Planning Commission of Warren County, Kentucky, on how What Could BG Be? used AI-supported tools to turn input from nearly 8,000 residents into Bowling Green's next 25-year comprehensive plan.

InnovateUS Awarded National Leadership Grant to Expand Civic AI Learning Alongside New Jersey, Montana, and Hawai'i State Libraries

Three-Year Multistate Initiative Will Combine Free Mobile AI Learning with Library-Based Programs Helping Residents Navigate Government, Participate in Civic Life, and Solve Community Problems with AI

News That Caught Our Eye: 8 Things Worth Reading Before a Data Center Comes to Your Community

As this week's curator of News That Caught Our Eye, I'm sharing the latest resources available to help public officials think through a proposed data center.  Every AI data center and every community is different.  These resources provide the tools to help each community think through its decisions about an AI data center, often in a challenging environment.

Designing Democratic Engagement with AI: A New Course for Turning Public Input into Public Policy

A new free course from the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, The GovLab, and InnovateUS teaches public servants how to design AI-enabled public engagement that turns comments into policy, drawing on 42 real-world examples from 20 countries.

What Is AI For? Four Questions Guiding Reboot This Fall

The public conversation about AI has swung from exuberance to alarm, casting AI as an unstoppable force. That framing overlooks the fact that public institutions design, build, buy, and regulate AI, and societies still choose where it leads. This fall, Reboot is organizing its coverage around four connected questions: what capabilities public institutions need, how they can become institutions that listen and learn, what public AI infrastructure requires, and how we measure whether AI is actually creating public value.

Boston Globe: Are local governments, like Boston’s, using AI enough?

From Curiosity to Capability: What We Learned From Training 250,000 Public Servants on AI

Government agencies are buying AI tools, but helping public servants use them well takes more than access. The first report from InnovateUS’ Observatory of Public Sector AI shows where workers need help: understanding how AI fits their jobs, learning to use it, and knowing what’s allowed. The findings on confidence after training are encouraging. The bigger question—and the Observatory’s next challenge—is whether learning has an impact on everyday work and improves services for residents.

Voters weigh doing their election homework with AI

Beth Simone Noveck spoke to Marketplace about how voters can use AI to interrogate their own views and deepen civic conversations about the issues on their ballot, not decide for them.

Reboot Weekly: Can A.I. Be Good for Democracy?

New Jersey’s AI tool reached 106,000 more eligible children for summer food benefits, matching records across programs so no family had to fill out a form. In The New York Times, Beth Simone Noveck draws on that case, California’s post-wildfire listening tool, and the UK’s Consult platform that sorted 50,000 public comments in two hours to argue that AI can repair broken institutions and restore public trust. Also this week: Anirudh Dinesh traces today’s AI hype back to the 1920s invention of “halitosis,” Trump launches America.gov as a federal AI front door, and Newsom signs seven of nine union-backed AI bills.

How A.I. Can Be Good for Democracy

In a New York Times guest essay, Beth Simone Noveck makes the case for putting A.I. behind every public servant. She draws on examples from New Jersey, California, the U.K., South Korea and South Australia, and calls for three investments: training the public workforce, giving workers secure access to multiple models, and using government purchasing power to build open, accountable A.I.

Project Spotlight: Engaged California — Wildfire Recovery Action Planning

After the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, California's Office of Data and Innovation used Engaged California to gather more than 1,300 resident comments. AI helped turn that input into 19 policy options, which residents then deliberated over and ranked. Jeffery Marino explains how clear ownership, with state agencies, local governments, and community groups acting together with support from the Governor's office, turned those priorities into a five-part recovery action plan.

The Halitosis of Our Times

The Hugging Face incident wasn't a rogue AI escaping its sandbox. It was a chain of poor human decisions. We need to stop talking about AI like mythology and start treating it like engineering.

The $170 billion lesson data center developers keep learning the hard way

Governors from Healey to Shapiro now say data centers need local buy-in, but they haven't said what a community "yes" actually looks like. Since 2024, at least 46 projects representing more than $170 billion have been blocked, withdrawn, or stalled, often because engagement started after the key decisions were made and benefits were whatever developers chose to offer. Deals in West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania show the terms can be negotiated, but only if states give communities the capacity to take part: early information, independent expertise, and a process that developers can pay for without owning.

Reboot Weekly: 46 Blocked Data Centers, NYC's AI Report, and Anthropic's Watchlist

At least 46 AI data center projects — more than $170 billion in announced investment — have been blocked, withdrawn, or stalled since 2024 following community opposition. In this week's Reboot piece, Beth Simone Noveck and Deborah Stine argue trust is the infrastructure data centers are missing, and developers can pay for the community conversation without owning it. Rutgers' National AI Opinion Monitor shows why: AI adoption hit 72% in August while worry climbed to 50% and anger to 30%. NYC's Public Advocate has called for an AI bill of rights; the Maldives' Prosecutor General now requires courtroom disclosure of AI use; and The American Prospect reports Anthropic has been running a predictive surveillance system that flagged suspected dissenters to police.

Project Spotlight: Co-Designing an AI Tool with Communities

California's AI-EP project made parents co-designers of an AI tool that makes their children's education plans easier to understand. More than 200 families joined the first pilot and came away better able to advocate for their kids. It shows that who you choose to include shapes who the tool serves.

Project Spotlight: What Could BG Be? How Warren County, Kentucky Turned 8,000 Voices into a 25-Year Plan

Ben Peterson, Executive Director of the City-County Planning Commission of Warren County, Kentucky, on how What Could BG Be? used AI-supported tools to turn input from nearly 8,000 residents into Bowling Green's next 25-year comprehensive plan.

InnovateUS Awarded National Leadership Grant to Expand Civic AI Learning Alongside New Jersey, Montana, and Hawai'i State Libraries

Three-Year Multistate Initiative Will Combine Free Mobile AI Learning with Library-Based Programs Helping Residents Navigate Government, Participate in Civic Life, and Solve Community Problems with AI

News That Caught Our Eye: 8 Things Worth Reading Before a Data Center Comes to Your Community

As this week's curator of News That Caught Our Eye, I'm sharing the latest resources available to help public officials think through a proposed data center.  Every AI data center and every community is different.  These resources provide the tools to help each community think through its decisions about an AI data center, often in a challenging environment.

Designing Democratic Engagement with AI: A New Course for Turning Public Input into Public Policy

A new free course from the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, The GovLab, and InnovateUS teaches public servants how to design AI-enabled public engagement that turns comments into policy, drawing on 42 real-world examples from 20 countries.

What Is AI For? Four Questions Guiding Reboot This Fall

The public conversation about AI has swung from exuberance to alarm, casting AI as an unstoppable force. That framing overlooks the fact that public institutions design, build, buy, and regulate AI, and societies still choose where it leads. This fall, Reboot is organizing its coverage around four connected questions: what capabilities public institutions need, how they can become institutions that listen and learn, what public AI infrastructure requires, and how we measure whether AI is actually creating public value.