(Listen to the podcast episode that inspired this blog post here)
Introduction
In the latest episode of The GovLab's Collective Intelligence Podcast, Prateek Buch and Brendan Arnold from the UK Government's Policy Lab and its innovative Collective Intelligence Lab are interviewed by Beth Simone Noveck, Director of the GovLab and the Burnes Center for Social Change. Prateek, a renowned advocate for responsible technology use, and Brendan, the government's first Creative Technologist, shed light on their work leveraging technology to engage UK residents and address policy challenges.
The Birth of the Collective Intelligence Lab
The UK Government Policy Lab (Policy Lab) was established nine years ago to radically improve policy outcomes by bringing design thinking and human-centered design into government problem-solving. By harnessing the power of collective intelligence and technology driven-solutions, the Lab aims to gather, analyze, and understand the perspectives of UK residents and to tackle pressing societal and political issues in a responsible and ethical manner.
“The problem we’re trying to solve is: how can we tap into the collective wisdom, or the ‘hive mind,’ around specific topics that, at any one time, government is tasked with solving” - Prateek Buch.
To date, the Policy Lab has worked in areas including the national security space, organizational design, environmental policy, and more, exploring where collective intelligence can add the most value. By involving diverse audiences, the Lab aims to gain a comprehensive understanding of public sentiment and shape policies that resonate with the people they affect.
Exploring Polis: A Digital Tool for Democratic Debates
Source: UK Policy Lab Blog
One of the tools that the Policy Lab employs is Polis, a digital platform designed to capture and sort new ideas from diverse audiences using AI. Using the platform, the Policy Lab would begin a discussion with seed statements such as “I don’t think e-scooters should be allowed on sidewalks.” UK residents (in this case) can then enrich the debate by adding their own statements in response and voting “agree,” “disagree,” or “unsure” on others’. From there people will continue to repeat these actions and deliberate while Polis ultimately uses machine learning to generate different opinion groups and capture user sentiment on everything that has been discussed regarding that topic.
The Policy Lab, explain Brendan and Prateek, selected Polis because it’s been field tested in many other areas and they wanted to investigate why it might be applicable in this context. “One of the hypotheses we have is that using Polis with public servants, subject matter experts, members of the public, will help generate new ideas compared with other forms of engagement,” says Prateek.
Benefits and Limitations of Polis
The Policy Lab, through experiments with Polis, confirmed its effectiveness. They managed to stimulate engaging debates and identify user personas from the clusters Polis created. Polis groups participants by their opinions, offering insights into diverse population segments and their viewpoints. This enables informed policy-making tailored to genuinely meet the needs of the citizens. They saw a lot of people giving feedback, from high-level comments to granular details, on how the government should be making policy decisions. Also, from a technical perspective, they found Polis to be a robust information system that provides insightful data.
The limitations of Polis, a digital tool to gauge public opinion, become particularly evident in scenarios like participatory budgeting. While Polis is adept at prompting citizens to prioritize issues for a city's budget — for instance, determining if a portion of the budget should be allocated to filling potholes — it falls short in guiding quantitative decision-making. This is because Polis lacks the capability for detailed financial analysis, crucial for deciding the exact budgetary allocations for specific issues. Such decisions require not only understanding public preferences but also balancing them with in-depth cost-benefit analyses, future financial implications, and considerations of equity, which are beyond Polis's current scope.
Furthermore, in the context of the UK government's Policy Lab, Polis’s limitations are compounded by its lack of automated moderation capabilities. The Policy Lab, obligated to maintain productive and appropriate discourse as a government entity, faces the labor-intensive task of manually reviewing thousands of public comments. This process is not only time-consuming but also prone to human error and potential biases in moderation. The absence of an efficient, automated moderation system slows down the feedback process, impacting the effectiveness and responsiveness of participatory budgeting initiatives.
These challenges highlight a broader dilemma in e-governance: finding the right balance between leveraging technology for enhanced public participation and managing the practical complexities inherent in digital tools. While Polis offers a platform for engaging citizens in policy discussions, its limitations underscore the need for complementary methods and tools. Integrating quantitative decision-making software, advanced moderation technologies, or even blending digital engagement with traditional approaches like town hall meetings could provide a more holistic solution.
Looking ahead, the development of digital tools for public governance could focus on enhancing capabilities in quantitative analysis and automated content moderation. Such advancements would not only streamline processes but also offer a more nuanced approach to combining qualitative and quantitative aspects of policy-making. Ultimately, the evolution of tools like Polis is essential for realizing the full potential of digital democracy and efficient e-governance."
Conclusion
The Policy Lab is refining its experiments to find the most effective tools for various issues, outcomes, and populations. Over 18 months of studying Polis, it has revealed its strengths and limitations in different policy contexts. It's crucial to weigh the advantages and risks of any method used in collective intelligence, especially when engaging diverse groups in policymaking.
The conversation ends with insights into the Lab's future. Prateek and Brendan express their vision for its growth and impact, underscoring their dedication to advancing collective intelligence and public participation in governance. We thank Prateek Buch and Brendan Arnold for their perspectives on the Collective Intelligence Lab's work. Their application of technology and collaborative methods aims to promote inclusivity and participatory decision-making. Keep an eye out for more engaging episodes, and remember to subscribe and follow the GovLab and Burnes Center for Social Change.
