Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI

In the afterword to Gustavo Maia’s forthcoming book Zero-Click Government, Beth Simone Noveck explores the democratic risks and possibilities of anticipatory governance. While supporting efforts to reduce the administrative burdens placed on citizens, she argues that traditional requests and applications also served as an important democratic feedback signal, one that anticipatory systems risk losing when governments act on inferred demand. Her response examines what kinds of participation, transparency, contestation, and institutional learning are needed if public action is increasingly shaped by data and AI.

In a new piece for Reboot Democracy, Rodrigo Cetina-Presuel, Marco Tello, and Jose M. Martinez-Sierra examine how Ecuador’s judiciary responded to the rapid arrival of AI by building a participatory governance process rooted in the country’s institutional and cultural realities. Through consultations with judicial officials, the process surfaced a critical gap ignored by most international AI frameworks: current AI systems cannot reliably interpret Indigenous languages or legal contexts such as Kichwa. The result was one of the region’s first judicial AI moratoriums, temporarily prohibiting the use of AI in Indigenous-language cases while Ecuador develops more legitimate and locally grounded governance mechanisms for the future.

Congressional information has long been technically public but practically inaccessible, scattered across government sites and locked behind expensive subscription platforms. In response, Zach Florman, Communications Director for Rep. Laura Friedman, created the Capitol Wire tool. The Capitol Wire shows how AI can close that gap by turning floor schedules, bill texts, and legislative updates into real-time alerts and searchable policy briefs that are fast, verifiable, and free. The result is a tool that makes public information more legible for staffers, reporters, and citizens alike, and increases the likelihood of public engagement.