Digital Democracy Lab: explore the challenge of keeping both the human and democracy in the loop in software design

KT4D partners, The Democratic Society and Trinity College Dublin, are organising the Digital Democracy Lab: Integrating Meaningful Frictions for Democratic Stewardship KT4D Use Case 4 - Meeting 2, that will be held on 13 November from 18:00 - 20:30 (GMT) in Dublin. Come up to the registration desk from 17:45, grab your pizza and enjoy the workshop with us in Bay 1 at the Digital Depot at the Digital Hub.

Event Background

This event is part of the KT4D project, which investigates how democracy and civic participation can be safeguarded and fostered in the face of rapidly changing knowledge technologies, such as AI. The second meeting of three for Use Case 4 is designed to expose audience members to the Digital Democracy Demonstrator through hands-on activities that will allow participants to apply their technical skills to critical questions of AI governance and democratic stewardship.

Target audience & objectives

The priority audience groups for this event are software engineers, developers, tech industry professionals, and researchers.

The objectives of the workshop are to:

• Explore the Digital Democracy Demonstrator (DDD) from a technical perspective
• Understand the concept of "meaningful/Trustworthy frictions" and their role in democratic stewardship of AI, and Democracy-in-the-loop technologies, more generally
• Identify opportunities to integrate these frictions into the DDD
• Engage in hands-on activities to propose and prototype friction implementations

Why you should attend

The Digital Democracy Lab is a 2.5-hour workshop designed for participants to:

1. Gain hands-on experience with the Digital Democracy Demonstrator (DDD), including backend access, to understand its architecture and features.
2. Increase understanding of "meaningful/trustworthy frictions" and their role in ensuring democratic stewardship of AI systems.
3. Engage in a creative challenge to design and prototype 2-3 meaningful frictions for specific areas of the DDD, pushing the boundaries of human-AI collaboration in a governance context.
4. Collaborate with peers to tackle the complex balance between system efficiency, trustworthiness, and democratic values in AI.
5. Contribute directly to improving AI-enabled democratic deliberation by proposing innovative friction implementations.
6. Gain insights into the societal implications of AI in democratic processes, helping you create more responsible and democratically compatible AI technologies.

This is an opportunity to influence the development of best practices for integrating AI into democratic decision-making in AI, as well as contribute to the formation of future standards in ethical AI development!