Listening to a presentation on synthethic publics*, something we’re increasingly seeing discussed in the participation and democracy space.
Reassuringly, the research suggests that while synthetic publics are good at matching public opinion survey results on existing situations, they are not good at addressing new situations.
On one level, this is what you’d expect – the training data exists for the past, not the future. The AI is guessing what a group of people in the past might think, it’s difficult for it to take new situations into account.
I say it’s reassuring, though, because for me democracy is about defining the future, not commentary on the past. I don’t think an aggregate of past public opinion could ever be a reliable source for synthetic democratic participation, because the nature of being citizen is having a vision of the future, and working out in society how to deliver it.
That doesn’t mean we should ignore AI in our field, of course, there are plenty of organisations thinking hard about how to use it, and Democratic Society is one of them (I’m about to speak on a panel on this very topic). But this is further evidence that it should be used to enhance participation and deliberation, not to replace it.
* (where existing public opinion research is aggregated and the data is queried using AI to get a synthetic public opinion on an issue, or AI personas are created who can be interacted with as if in an interview).
This dynamic website shows the different connections in what Francesca Bria calls the “Authoritarian Stack” – the connected network of ultra-rich, corporations and politicians that is driving the international
I am less concerned about the existence of this than I am about the absence of something on the anti-authoritarian/democratic side of the debate.
There are a few funders and ultra-rich individuals who are funding organisations, there are organisations like Philea who are trying to connect up the different European foundations, and of course there are also European and national government funds for research.
However, the picture on our side of the divide seems far more disconnected, far more hesitant, and reluctant to put private egos and interests aside to defend the very foundations of our democratic system.
It looks, in fact, a lot like the division of mainstream parties trying to face up to the populist right.
The lessons of success against the populists in politics are to keep the focus on living standards and not on culture wars; to reinforce norms around anti-racism and split the pro-business right from the far right; and to ensure that the foundations of the rule of law and fair elections are preserved.
To this might be added the work on epistemic security that my own organisation is starting to do with the support of one of those pro-democracy funders, looking at policy and at hyperlocal levels.
But much of this is done on tiny budgets, without the ability to invest in research, in network building, and in design. Unless we can start to build collective and collaborative work on anti-authoritarianism, and create the network of people at local level that can make the difference in one-to-one interactions.
It’s unlikely that we can compete toe-to-toe with authoritarian billionaires. But we can recruit real people and work in real communities to stand up to their influence.
The first thing to say about Megalopolis is that it is a mess of a film.
It feels like it’s badly edited down from a seven hour original cut, and indeed it would work much better as a TV series where some of the world-building and plot lines could be built out rather than abandoned halfway through. But we’re not here for film criticism we’re here to talk about the local government policy.
Megalopolis is roughly based on a hybrid of modern New York and ancient Rome, although the Catiline in this film is not the Catiline of Roman history, despite the extensive quoting of Cicero.
Even so, it is much more modern than ancient, with a populist rabble-rouser, Clodio, who is very clearly meant to be Trump (and who ends up – spoilers – hanging upside down à la Mussolini).
The striking thing about it from a city governance perspective is how unimaginative most of it is.
In particular, the utopia that the Robert Moses-ish Cesar Catalina is trying to create looks like Midjourney has had a go on an Elon Musk tweet.
In this bright new future, the transport mechanisms are either conveyor belts for individuals or things that look like bubble rolling along a road – magically flying off to different destinations.
There is nothing appealing or collective about that cold and isolated vision of the world. It reminded me of Robert Moses’s view that public transport should be kept away from his state parks on Long Island in case it brought the wrong sort/colour of people.
The film also takes a very mayoral and personalised view of leadership, more Roman Empire than Roman Republic.
The mayor, as well as his rival, is seen only as a single monarchal leader. In reality, even imperial Rome in the early years had significant other power centres, and while Augustus may have been “first among equals” he was definitely – even if only for politeness’s sake – among equals.
Also part of the Great Man theory of Megalopolis is Cesar Catalina, almost a John Galt figure in his icy certainty about his vision, and similarly treated by the film as unquestionably true.
So don’t go to see Megalopolis for a vision of the future, either of Rome, Moses’ New York or the future of America. Although the present moment is one of infinitely arrogant rich men shouting about their unquestioned brilliance, that is driven by a grassroots, decentralised movement of individuals in a way that makes the faceless crowds of the film feel very old-fashioned.
The film misses out on the most important parts of what future governance looks like – decentralisation, for good or ill. The TV-political binome in the film is gone. The single male leader is still with us, for now, but has to rely on more than traditional institutional structures. The idea that making the better argument on TV is now all there is to winning the votes.
There are optimistic and pessimistic visions of the future, and we need to do our best to head down the positive path, but Megalopolis gives you a future that is very much of the past.
Before rejoicing that Labour is going all-in on citizen assemblies, it’s worth thinking about what was actually said in this morning’s Times (which I’ve now managed to read).
First, the story itself (https://lnkd.in/esK-VCnf) is a write-up of comments made to Tom Baldwin, who is writing a book about Kier Starmer. This is at best a kite-flying exercise. Most of all, it’s an author wanting a juicy story to trail his book. I respect that need, but it’s not a policy commitment.
Second, the content of what was said is underwhelming from a democratic innovation perspective.
To start with, it’s high level and focused on just one approach. Citizen assemblies are a tool not a solution – a hammer that works for knocking in a nail, but won’t help you mend your glasses. Democratic innovation will need lots of different tools that work together, at scale, over time, not single-run single-topic events. The work that we are doing at Democratic Society on climate change in cities is a good example of how complex and long-term decisions need to be taken.
What’s more, the citizen assembly hammer seems to be being waved to threaten civil servants and politicians – “Whitehall won’t like it”, which is the opposite of the point. If democratic reform is done well, for the right reasons, Whitehall should like it, because it will be a meaningful contribution to effective democratic governance.
If we instrumentalise tools like citizen assemblies either by presenting them as a universal solution to wicked obstructive politicians, or using them to break down institutional opposition, then the whole cause of democratic reform is set back.
And even then, a citizen assembly won’t reduce opposition to housebuilding if it is not part of a much wider and long-term democratic approach, in which councils have to be involved in shaping trade-offs and compromise. People opposed to a housing development are not going to be less opposed because a group they never met or voted for thought it was a good idea three years ago.
I don’t want to sound negative. Institutionalising more participation in government is essential if we are going to make up the gap that has been created by the falling-away of mass party membership and the rise of a more individualistic politics. I’m glad that the Labour Party are taking democratic innovation seriously, along with many other social democratic parties across Europe including my own.
But for those of us who care about democratic reform (and social democracy) our very commitment means that this is the time for scepticism. If reform is on the table, we have to make sure it’s done right, or we won’t get another chance.
So, for this reason, let’s be cautious in the welcome. Let’s not mistake a tool for a solution. And let’s be wary of celebrating a semi-announcement that treats citizen assemblies as an institutional bludgeon not as part of structural democratic reform.
David Runciman’s article on the political philosophy of the European Union is fantastic (though a little whiskery – 2001). Link: LRB – David Runciman: Invented Communities.
Thank GOD for the journalistic profession. I for one couldn’t have lived a moment longer without knowing that Tony Blair was once sent a reminder about an unpaid bill. And as for his purchase of a dishwasher – why in heaven’s name has it taken till now for us to know the brand? Now our war dead can rest in peace.
Step aside, founding fathers! No greater contribution to democracy and the rule of law has ever been made.
The NHS is inviting people to vote on whether the interactive bodymaps on the NHS website should have accurately represented genitals or not. Admirably democratic of them, I think.
According to evidence before a House of Lords committee, reported by the BBC, Rupert Murdoch has admitted telling his red-tops what to write (and making his views clear to the board of the Times, as well). So if you want distortions and half-truths designed to warp your views to fit the personal political agenda of a nationality-hopping billionaire, you should buy the Sun, the paper that sticks up for AustralianAmerican British values.
