About this project
When technological progress happens fast, the politics to deal with it usually lag behind. This is true for politics, in large part, because it is true for society. AI is developing very fast at the moment. Society is talking about it to no end. And yet, we are oblivious.
When processes are messy and large-scale, it is often hard to see the forest for all the trees. We do see that we are using ChatGPT and similar tools more and more. We see images and videos created by AI, prototypes of AI robots in internet videos and joke about everyone losing their jobs to them. We even talk about the possibility of misuse, cheating, fraud and fake media. We see the trees growing.
We use AI, we notice that everyone is using it and that the processes surrounding us include it more and more. In this, we are passive observers. Then, some of us are more agentic than that. We might think about our own usage of AI, reflect on what it does with us, restrict it. But even then, we have only become active as private individuals, not as citizens. We have not yet recognised the forest.
To recognise the forest is to take a more holistic view, a bird’s-eye view of society. It is to think about the long-term change of norms and institutions in society. But why care as a lay citizen? Why not leave it to the experts?
As citizens of democracies, we are entrusted with a task that is necessarily overwhelming. No matter how sophisticated our institutions are, it is ultimately on us to steer the country through the challenges and opportunities that a changing world presents us with. Now, reality seems to confront us with contrary evidence. It is perfectly possible to remain passive and leave it to the experts. But there is a catch.
The virtue of democracy cannot be found in the act of making crosses on ballots. Instead, it can be found in our capacity to make decisions that benefit most of us rather than just the interests of a few. If we let loose the steering wheel and become passive, the decisions will still be made. But they will lack this virtue.
Technocrats and experts will always know better how exactly AI works, what we can expect from the next LLM update or which legal gaps could be exploited. And therefore, we need them. But make no mistake; they are not more competent to decide whether we should use AI to expand our surveillance system, whether we are better off without the need to learn writing and researching or who should be in charge of the employment of the technology.
We can impossibly become experts on everything. But if we don’t form a position on these questions, there will be no public opinion. Policymakers are reliably found by actors who do have a clear opinion, mostly lobbyists with vested interests. If there is no public opinion to counterbalance their influence, it will be their positions that inform the decisions, and the virtue of democracy is lost.
But that need not happen. Seeing the forest for the trees is the first step to remedying our self-imposed immaturity and reclaiming sovereignty over our society’s future. This project seeks to encourage everyone to take it.