'Citizen Participation and Machine Learning for a Better Democracy' Abstract:
The development of democratic systems is a crucial task as confirmed by its selection as one of the Millennium Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations. In this article, we report on the progress of a project that aims to address barriers, one of which is information overload, to achieving effective direct citizen participation in democratic decision-making processes. The main objectives are to explore if the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning can improve citizens' experience of digital citizen participation platforms. Taking as a case study the "Decide Madrid" Consul platform, which enables citizens to post proposals for policies they... (read more)
The potential positive links between AI and Politics is a topic that I believe isn't given enough time. I would recommended the wonderful paper 'Citizen Participation and Machine Learning for a Better Democracy' as an introduction for anyone who is interested. Equally, for a shorter specific example of how these two forces can interact I would recommend the LessWrong Post 'African Wild Dogs Vote By Sneezing - Can AI Help Us Do Better?'
Thank you for the considered feedback, I will go through over it with an editor I know. Also, if you really like the idea please feel free to write your own post on, or inspired by, Augmented Assembly
Thank you very much for the positive feedback and upvote. I would certainly be willing to edit my post further. Admittedly, I wanted to condense the proposal into a ~5mins read and if people wanted more depth they could view my sources. However, this constraint may have made my writing become overly condensed and loose readability. I will think about your general feedback but I would also be happy to consider altering any specific elements you found to be the least legible.
This is true, and it is very fair to bring up that a nuanced communication pathway does currently exist; however, it is arguably not an effective mechanism. I am skeptical of how "listened to" people who write to their legislator truly feel. Gratification from this act will likely be unreliable and highly delayed. Thus, the main barrier is not so much the effort to communicate, although I certainly don't think that this is a non-trivial factor, but the experience derived from such communication. In an app or website, there could be a level of immediate gratification and challenge from interaction with one's peers. This should make the process feel less isolating, and... (read more)
African wild dogs vote on whether or not to hunt by sneezing. As a social species, they institute a form of democracy. A tally is taken of those voting to hunt, with a vote being signaled by a sneeze. Have humans really transcended such one-dimensional voting mechanisms? In ancient Greece, all members of a community gathered to address important issues. As civilizations grew larger, this became impossible, but the need for in-person debate and deliberation remained. Here is where representative democracy comes into play; an elected official can debate on behalf of their local constituency. As the world's population has grown, this regime has come under strain as the trust and communication that... (read 1149 more words →)
Agreed