Deliberative democracy and artificial intelligence (AI): Prospects and challenges

Abstract

This panel explores the unique position of deliberative democracy in using, forecasting, and scrutinising the role and effects of generative intelligence (AI) in contemporary politics. Practices based on deliberative democracy can remedy some shortcomings of political decision-making. In forums such as citizens’ juries, citizens are included to influence decision-making, and they access expert testimony and consider the diverse preferences of their peers. This can appear to be in sharp contrast to AI-mediated digital communication of contemporary times. The relative ease of the production and circulation of AI-generated synthetic content undermines inclusive and epistemically resilient public deliberation. Distortions witnessed as such in spikes of deepfakes during elections show the extent of the risks of manipulative communication facing deliberative democracy’s aspirations. Despite this, we see a starkly different prospect for deliberative democracy—an AI-powered one. For instance, Google’s DeepMind created the Habermas Machine to show the potential for using large language models (LLMs) to create AI facilitators in deliberations about divisive issues. Nonetheless, further uptake and thinking about AI-powered citizen deliberation needs to engage with serious limitations, from data bias to anti-democratic and irresponsible practices. The papers in this panel engage with these three perspectives of utility, scrutiny, and forecast about the role of AI in deliberative democracy using different cases. Hans Asenbaum considers the setting where AI facilitation is not online. His paper draws on the experience of facilitation by a walking-and-talking robot that is physically present in deliberation, and what this means theoretically and empirically for deliberative practice. Bernard Reber explores the idea of AI-assisted and simulated deliberation in an interdisciplinary manner. Indeed, LLMs may point to the communication skills necessary for deliberation It proposes, as a starting point, democratic criteria to be applied to the entire socio-technical chain of participatory platforms throughout the political cycle, from election campaigns to the co-construction of public policies. Finally, Markus Holodo explains the challenges to democracy as underpinned by the use of AI and online platforms by the far right. This is a necessary complement to consider the perspectives from smaller-and-controlled AI uses against the wider conditions and challenges facing deliberative democracy.

Title	Details
Which Role Should Robots Play in Democracy? A Bottom-up Perspective	View Paper Details
AI and Deliberation. Moving from Sophisticated Polling to the Order of Discourse	View Paper Details
Deliberative Freedom and the AI–Military–Industrial Complex: The Contested Space for Thinking	View Paper Details
From Platform Power to Policy Drift: Techno-Oligarchy, Electoral Polarization, and Authoritarian Agenda-Setting Across Election Cycles	View Paper Details