Digital Democracy Lab Demonstrator Platform
General Overview & Rationale
The Digital Democracy Demonstrator Platform (DDD) and the Digital Democracy Lab are two interdependent components designed to enhance democratic exchange processes by integrating AI and Big Data into participatory settings, such as citizen panels, assemblies, and other deliberative formats. In line with established, analogue best practices for civic participation, the Digital Democracy Demonstrator will deploy AI and Big Data with the aim of enhancing democratic exchange by bringing new insights and diverse perspectives into the deliberation process. It is developed with the aim of fostering informed conversations around complex, often speculative issues that are not easily addressed through traditional democratic means.
The Digital Democracy Lab is conducted as a one-day hybrid workshop. During these sessions, participants are guided through a deliberation exercise using the DDD. The platform's AI systems, including specially trained chatbots, provide participants with a range of perspectives based on various data sources—from European media narratives to policy documents and peer-reviewed research.
Throughout the workshop, participants engage with AI-generated outputs to support their discussions, while facilitators ensure that participants critically reflect on the varying perspectives and biases embedded in the information provided.
The aims of KER 6 are:
To develop an AI-informed deliberative support tool that incorporates both ethical standards and democratic principles, sensitive to the specificities of democratic exchange processes.
To explore how AI and Big Data can be used in deliberative settings, building trust in the system through transparency and adaptability.
- To empower developers and deployers of AI and Big Data systems for democratic exchange to incorporate meaningful friction into the technology, better reflecting and supporting the nature of democratic processes.
Findings & Next Steps
The next major milestone is the launch of the beta version of the platform in fall 2024, followed by testing across the four KT4D Use Cases with policymakers, citizens, and software developers. These initial tests will provide critical feedback on how well the platform supports deliberative processes, particularly in building trust in the use of AI and Big Data.
While the long-term goal is to embed "Democracy-in-the-loop" AI, where real-time democratic decision-making influences AI systems, the immediate focus will be on refining the platform based on early feedback, ensuring the AI-generated outputs remain transparent, traceable, and comprehensible to participants.
Stakeholder Groups:
Stakeholders & Testing
We are testing the Digital Democracy Demonstrator to facilitate deliberative conversations on subjects that are complex and speculative. The DDD will support democratic discussions by offering insights derived from curated data sets via specialised chatbots. The test case focuses on the question: “How can the EU foster a positive transition of the labor market in the AI era?” This question was selected for its complexity, speculative nature, and lack of mainstream knowledge on the subject, making it an ideal challenge for the platform.
The AI system enables participants to process diverse expert opinions and information on such complex topics, allowing for deeper deliberations that would typically require an array of external experts. By incorporating Big Data and AI, the platform facilitates informed conversations on convoluted issues in ways that human intelligence alone might struggle to achieve.
Useful Resources
TBD
Why is it important?
The Digital Democracy Lab Demonstrator Platform addresses the challenges and opportunities posed by AI and Big Data in democratic settings. In line with KT4D’s mission to enhance civic engagement and democratic innovation, this platform enables citizens, policymakers, and software developers to grapple with the complexities of integrating AI into democratic exchanges.
By providing an AI tool capable of facilitating democratic conversations, the Digital Democracy Demonstrator helps tackle "wicked problems"—issues too convoluted for traditional deliberative processes. The Digital Democracy Lab ensures participants are guided through these complex decision-making processes, while the AI supports, but does not overshadow, human agency in shaping the democratic conversation.
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"For AI and Big Data to foster civic participation, the technologies themselves have to be built on the principles of democracy – we need transparency on how the technology works, why it is making the decisions it does, and we must also give citizens the possibility to shape the technology. Democracy is messy and slow. This is not a ‘bug’ of democracy, but a virtue. AI technologies should not try to erase this. In democratic contexts, the friction and 'messiness' of democracy should be embraced, not erased, as democracy itself is inherently slow and inclusive."
-Elizabeth Calderón Lüning, Mission Lead Future Technologies and Democracy at Demsoc and Work package Lead in KT4D