AI and Public Engagement
Who Participates in Digital Democracy – and Who Really Benefits?
This blog post summarizes the findings from a recent study examining use cases from four countries where digital platforms were used to engage residents in lawmaking and policymaking. The authors conclude that “who participates in digital democracy doesn’t always determine who benefits – what matters is whether and how governments respond. If they don’t respond, or if their response isn’t inclusive, even the broadest participation means little. AI-driven engagement must go beyond scaling participation and deliberation to address this challenge.”
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Bringing Citizens into the Courtroom: How Digital Technologies Can Democratize Constitutional Justice
“Constitutional courts could use AI to incorporate citizen participation through three key technological innovations: information platforms that make constitutional law accessible to all citizens; deliberative digital forums that enable diverse public input on constitutional questions; and collaborative interpretation mechanisms that allow citizens and experts to contribute directly to judicial decision-making. These tools could enhance transparency, foster democratic engagement, and improve the legitimacy of constitutional rulings. By leveraging AI, courts can manage large volumes of public input efficiently, ensure inclusivity, and bridge the gap between legal experts and the general public, ultimately strengthening the relationship between citizens and constitutional governance.”
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Our Love-Hate Relationship with Digital Technology
“At the Imagining the Digital Future Center, we have found that Americans are fearful in important ways about AI – particularly generative AI and large language models (LLMs) – and yet the user base is exploding. On the fear side, our surveys show that people are especially concerned about the way AI systems will erode their personal privacy, their opportunities for employment, how these systems might change their relationships with others, their potential impact on basic human rights, the way they will disrupt people’s physical and mental health. At the level of institutions and big systems, they also have great anxiety that AI will negatively impact politics and elections, further erode the level of civility in society, worsen economic inequality, and be harmful to both K-12 education and higher education. Those concerns are leavened to a degree by the public’s sense that AI will be helpful in health and science discovery. Still, overall and in broad terms these are grim expectations. And yet … the survey results we just reported show that 52% of U.S. adults already are LLM users, making them one of the fastest – if not the fastest – adopted consumer technology in history.”
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Diseño participativo de servicios públicos con apoyo de inteligencia artificial (Co-Creating Public Services with AI Assistance)
En esta charla se explorarán procesos y herramientas que facilitan la integración del diseño participativo en la definición de problemas y el desarrollo de soluciones innovadoras a problemas públicos con el apoyo de la inteligencia artificial. A través de este nuevo enfoque, se discutirán nuevas herramientas de participación y consideraciones clave para colaborar de manera efectiva y equitativa con diversas comunidades.
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Innovating in the Public Interest: Winning Early
Great projects begin with early wins. We will talk about the importance of driving for early wins – and of using them to build understanding of how collaborators are each evaluated and rewarded for successes. Early successes can become the foundation for longer-term initiatives.
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Starting with Curiosity: A Beginner’s AI Guide for Public Servants
Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere—but what does it actually mean for your work in government? This beginner-friendly workshop is designed for public servants who are curious about AI but may also have questions, concerns, or hesitations. No technical background is required. Together, we’ll explore what AI is (and isn’t), how it works behind the scenes, and how public servants can begin to navigate this rapidly evolving space with confidence, ethics, and purpose.
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Indonesia faces unique threat from AI manipulation, research shows
“Indonesians are deeply aware of the power of AI-generated content to manipulate public opinion – but those who think they’re safe may be the most vulnerable, according to new research from Luminate conducted by Ipsos. Three in four (75%) believe AI–generated content has the potential to impact the general public’s political views, while 72% say it could affect their close friends and family. Even at a personal level, 63% acknowledge that AI-generated content could shape their own political views. This suggests a broad awareness that AI-driven narratives have real-world consequences, even as individuals may underestimate their own susceptibility compared to those around them. Those who think AI won’t affect them may struggle to detect it
Emergent research shows that AI-generated propaganda can be more effective than content produced by people. What’s less clear is whether it still works if people know it was created by AI. Regardless, our survey found that significant numbers of Indonesians aren’t confident in their ability to identify whether social media content is AI-generated. A quarter (26%) admit they are not very confident, or not confident at all; 70% claim to be at least fairly confident.”
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Analyzing the Benefits of Artificial Intelligence to Racially Inclusive Democracy
“Over the past two decades—as the United States has grown more ethnically diverse—the U.S. Supreme Court has dismantled key voting rights protections, and state legislatures have erected a record number of voting restrictions. Largely oblivious to this growing gap in legal protections, several artificial intelligence (‘AI’) optimists have claimed that AI can help usher in a more inclusive, participatory, and unbiased democracy. Such an outcome, however, is far from guaranteed. This Article is the first to comprehensively examine the extent to which AI—and the legal frameworks that regulate it—can advance racially inclusive democracy. It fills a gap in the AI optimism literature by offering a cleareyed assessment of relevant political, racial, and economic barriers to AI making democracy more racially inclusive. This analysis reveals that some of the AI optimists’ technological and legal proposals could, in fact, exacerbate racial disparities in political power and harm voters of color. The Article acknowledges, however, that certain AI tools, if applied appropriately, could help reduce turnout gaps and increase government responsiveness to communities of color. Although good AI law is no substitute for an updated Voting Rights Act and a Supreme Court committed to protecting voting rights, embedding values of racial inclusion into AI law at this formative stage could shape the trajectory of our democracy. For example, laws ensuring broad access to public AI infrastructure (particularly in historically marginalized communities) and robust AI accountability laws can foster conditions in which AI is more likely to be used to benefit racially inclusive democracy.”
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How New Jersey's AI Task Force Used AI to Develop Evidence-Based Policy Solutions with New Jersey Residents
“Building on New Jersey's longstanding experience using new technology to engage with the public in how we make policy, the State AI Task Force pioneered a novel approach using AI to help us develop more robust recommendations faster and with the benefit of large-scale community engagement. Rather than relying solely on traditional bench research or expert consultations, the Task Force's Workforce Training and Jobs of the Future Working Group developed a process that paired AI-powered research with direct input from thousands of New Jersey workers to address the pressing challenge of the impact of AI on work…The Working Group used Policy Synth, a free and open source AI-based toolkit developed by Citizens Foundation and The GovLab, to synthesize the findings from research and engagements with private and public sector workers in the state. The Working Group used this approach to develop evidence-based policies while also enhancing democratic participation. As a result of this process, which the Working Group undertook over eight weeks, New Jersey is implementing free AI skills training for all public servants and developing an AI-powered labor market monitoring system to help workers navigate career trends.”
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