Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI

Lecture Series

How can we leverage the power of artificial intelligence to reimagine democracy?

Join the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University and its partner project The GovLab as we talk with innovative designers, thinkers, and changemakers from around the world working to “do democracy” differently.

We will explore how machine learning, natural language processing, generative AI, can enable more participatory and inclusive ways of solving problems and strengthen our ability to collaborate in governing ourselves.

Through online and in-person conversations with pioneers working to democratize power in governments, schools and workplaces, these conversations aim to address how to use new technologies to strengthen democracy.

This lecture series is part of the Burnes Center and GovLab’s program on Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI.

Upcoming Workshops

Past Events

Upcoming Workshops

eventSeptember 11, 2025, 3:00 PM ET

Why Public Engagement?

Understand the case for public engagement in an AI era. Discuss the values, risks, and potential of AI to support civic participation—if designed well. Come away with a nine-step checklist for designing effective and efficient engagement with AI.

Instructor(s):

Beth Simone Noveck , Danielle Allen

eventSeptember 24, 2025, 3:00 PM ET

Different AI Horses for Different Courses: Matching Tools to Purpose

Explore how to select the right AI tool for the right purpose from deliberation to co-creation, from problem definition to solution identification.

Instructor(s):

Greta Ríos , Nikhil Kumar

eventSeptember 30, 2025, 3:00 PM ET

Designing Smarter Engagement with AI

Learn a practical framework for structuring inclusive, AI-supported public engagement. Explore how to define clear goals, reach the right participants, and turn public input into actionable results. Leave with a customizable blueprint for making engagement more strategic, equitable, and outcomes-driven.

Instructor(s):

Beth Simone Noveck , Dane Gambrell

eventOctober 14, 2025, 3:00 PM ET

Solving Problems with the Public

Learn how to systematically analyze and structure participation feedback. Deep dive into Hamburg's DIPAS system and how the city is using AI to identify patterns, themes, and geographic clusters in public input while maintaining transparency and human oversight. Explore live dashboards for ongoing process monitoring and post-participation analysis tools that pre-structure feedback for more efficient evaluation. Discover methods for genuine partnership in policy and service design.

Instructor(s):

Aline Muylaert (TBC) , Speaker/s from City of Copenhagen

eventOctober 15, 2025, 3:00 PM ET

Defining Problems with the Public

Learn how AI can help communities identify and frame policy challenges collaboratively, moving beyond expert-driven problem definition to inclusive priority- and agenda-setting.

Instructor(s):

Claudius Lieve

eventOctober 29, 2025, 3:00 PM ET

Citizen Assemblies and AI

Explore how artificial intelligence can enhance citizen assemblies and other deliberative democratic innovations. Learn how AI can improve participant selection, facilitate small group discussions, synthesize complex policy information for lay participants, and help assemblies process expert evidence more effectively. Examine real-world examples of AI-supported assemblies and discover frameworks for maintaining democratic legitimacy while leveraging technology to make deliberative processes more accessible and effective. Moderated by Danielle Allen, Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, Harvard Kennedy School

Instructor(s):

Lawrence Lessig (TBC)

eventNovember 12, 2025, 2:00 PM ET

Co-Creating with the Multi-Lingual Communities

Learn how to design AI tools with—not for—diverse communities facing language and cultural barriers. Using the AI-EP project as a case study, discover how to integrate community perspectives into every stage of AI development, from problem identification to model training to solution testing. Explore practical frameworks for co-design processes that ensure AI tools reflect the actual needs and values of multi-lingual families, rather than what experts assume they need. Discover how AI can break down language barriers through real-time translation and culturally-sensitive content adaptation, moving beyond literal translation to capture meaning and context.

Instructor(s):

Sofía Bosch Gómez , Anirudh Dinesh

eventNovember 19, 2025, 3:00 PM ET

Inviting Public Comments, Summarizing Public Comments, Responding to Public Comments

Public comment is a cornerstone of democratic decision-making, but agencies often struggle to both attract meaningful participation and make sense of the responses they receive. This workshop will explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the way governments invite, collect, and analyze public input on draft regulations, policies, and plans. Participants will learn how to use AI to craft requests for comments, use AI to help spread the word about open comment periods to reach more diverse voices, encourage constructive feedback, and then process thousands of comments efficiently without losing nuance. We will highlight techniques for using AI to detect themes, synthesize insights, and surface patterns for decision-makers. The session will also look at the opportunities and challenges of using AI responsibly in comment solicitation, including issues of transparency, equity, trust and efficiency. Moderated by Beth Noveck, Founder of InnovateUS and The GovLab.

Instructor(s):

Speaker TBC

eventNovember 20, 2025, 3:00 PM ET

Listening to the Public with AI

This session will explore how AI can help governments better understand and respond to community priorities without losing the richness of public perspectives. Drawing on the “What Could BG Be?” initiative in Bowling Green, Ohio, participants will see how city leaders and researchers used AI to process community feedback, capture sentiment, and highlight minority voices that might otherwise be overlooked. The conversation will also address risks and safeguards, emphasizing how AI can complement—not replace—human judgment in civic engagement. Attendees will gain insight into both the promise and the challenges of using AI to create more inclusive, transparent, and responsive public processes. Moderated by Danielle Allen, Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, Harvard Kennedy School.

Instructor(s):

Beth Goldberg , Mike Aspacher (TBC)

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Past Events

Reboot Democracy Lecture Series