Democracy And Ai Ash Center

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 6, 2025, 11:02 AM

Professor of Public Policy, James Bryant Conant University Professor Director, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation; Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government Professor of the Practice of Public Policy, HKS; Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Computer Science, SEAS Creating a healthy digital civic infrastructure ecosystem means not just deploying technology for the sake of efficiency, but thoughtfully designing tools built to enhance democratic engagement from connection to action. Public engagement has long been too time-consuming and costly for governments to sustain, but AI offers tools to make participation more systematic and impactful. Our new Reboot Democracy Workshop Series replaces lectures with hands-on sessions that teach the practical “how-to’s” of AI-enhanced engagement.

Together with leading practitioners and partners at InnovateUS and the Allen Lab at Harvard, we’ll explore how AI can help institutions tap the collective intelligence of our communities more efficiently and effectively. Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders gave a talk about their book Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship at the Harvard Ash Center. The discussion was moderated by Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor and Director of the Allen Lab. Computers, the internet, and artificial intelligence continue to reshape our society—but many democratic institutions have yet to adapt. In “Rewiring Democracy,” the authors illuminate both the promises and pitfalls of technology in contemporary democracy.

Drawing on real-world examples and innovative projects, Schneier and Sanders propose practical reforms, showing how civic technologists and engaged citizens alike can help remake democracy for the digital age. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V2nQeCkdXk On February 15, the Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI lecture series hosted renowned philosophers Danielle Allen and A.C. Grayling for a conversation on the foundational principles of democracy in the age of artificial intelligence. Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI talks with innovative designers, thinkers, and changemakers from around the world working to “do democracy” differently in the age of AI. To learn more about the series and read our blog on AI, democracy and governance, visit: https://rebootdemocracy.ai/.

The series is hosted by the Burnes Center for Social Change and the GovLab, in partnership with the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University. Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology & Prosperity, by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, was named to the Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center’s AI and Democracy Summer Reading List. Earlier this year, the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Ash Center convened a multidisciplinary conference on the political economy of artificial intelligence (AI) that brought together scholars and practitioners from the worlds... This event sought to produce a research agenda that brings critical approaches to political economy to questions about power, technology, and democracy in the context of rapid AI development. After the conclusion of the event, several participants wrote short essays building on the discussions at the conference. These wide-ranging essays showcase the problems of our existing AI development and deployment ecosystem and advance new ideas for pursuing a path for AI in the public interest that better serves all people and...

To learn more about the conference and to explore this essay collection, click the link below ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/gSP9AjzB In the face of fast-advancing, general-purpose AI, our traditional governance tools are often too slow or vague. What’s missing? In a new essay, Ankur V. (Google DeepMind), Anine Havn Andresen, Shahar Avin (Technology Strategy Roleplay) and I argue that the success of AI governance efforts will largely rest on foresight, or the ability of AI labs, policymakers and others... While traditional reports and roundtables play an important role in policy development, we argue that serious games are unique in their ability to help participants grapple with the messiness of human decision-making in complex,...

That's why we designed Science 2030, a 5-hour serious role-playing game that simulates the impact of advanced AI on the scientific ecosystem through 2030. Check out the full piece to see what we learned from building and running a serious game, and how we plan to evolve and scale the game next year. Read the full essay here: https://lnkd.in/gJt29Wbk Excited to share this new essay exploring how we might approach governerning what we don’t yet understand. Traditional policy tools often lag behind fast-advancing, general-purpose AI. What’s missing, we argue, is foresight—structured ways to imagine and rehearse how different AI futures could unfold.

That’s why we designed Science 2030, a serious role-playing game that simulates the impact of advanced AI on the scientific ecosystem through 2030. It brings policymakers, researchers, and technologists into the same room to confront the messy, human side of decision-making. Cheers to Zoë Brammer & Ankur V. for their leadership in making it happen! In the face of fast-advancing, general-purpose AI, our traditional governance tools are often too slow or vague. What’s missing?

In a new essay, Ankur V. (Google DeepMind), Anine Havn Andresen, Shahar Avin (Technology Strategy Roleplay) and I argue that the success of AI governance efforts will largely rest on foresight, or the ability of AI labs, policymakers and others... While traditional reports and roundtables play an important role in policy development, we argue that serious games are unique in their ability to help participants grapple with the messiness of human decision-making in complex,... That's why we designed Science 2030, a 5-hour serious role-playing game that simulates the impact of advanced AI on the scientific ecosystem through 2030. Check out the full piece to see what we learned from building and running a serious game, and how we plan to evolve and scale the game next year. Read the full essay here: https://lnkd.in/gJt29Wbk

Excellent account of this AI strategy game and what it aimed to achieve, from its authors including Shahar Avin and Anine Havn Andresen on behalf of Technology Strategy Roleplay. Harvard’s hub for research and teaching on democracy The last decade taught us painful lessons about how social media can reshape democracy: misinformation spreads faster than truth, online communities harden into echo chambers, and political divisions deepen as polarization grows. Now, another wave of technology is transforming how voters learn about elections—only faster, at scale, and with far less visibility. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, among others, are becoming the new vessels (and sometimes, arbiters) of political information. Our research suggests their influence is already rippling through our democracy.

LLMs are being adopted at a pace that makes social media uptake look slow. At the same time, traffic to traditional news and search sites has declined. As the 2026 midterms near, more than half of Americans now have access to AI, which can be used to gather information about candidates, issues, and elections. Meanwhile, researchers and firms are exploring the use of AI to simulate polling results or to understand how to synthesize voter opinions. These models may appear neutral—politically unbiased, and merely summarizing facts from different sources found in their training data or on the internet. At the same time, they operate as black boxes, designed and trained in ways users can’t see.

Researchers are actively trying to unravel the question of whose opinions LLMs reflect. Given their immense power, prevalence, and ability to “personalize” information, these models have the potential to shape what voters believe about candidates, issues, and elections as a whole. And we don’t yet know the extent of that influence. Creating a healthy digital civic infrastructure ecosystem means not just deploying technology for the sake of efficiency, but thoughtfully designing tools built to enhance democratic engagement from connection to action. Last week’s leak of the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” drew intense reactions across academia.

Critics call it government overreach threatening free expression, while supporters see a chance for reform and renewed trust between universities and policymakers. Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, director of the Democratic Knowledge Project and the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, weighs in. Amid rising illiberalism, Danielle Allen urges a new agenda to renew democracy by reorienting institutions, policymaking, and civil society around the intentional sharing of power. Creating a healthy digital civic infrastructure ecosystem means not just deploying technology for the sake of efficiency, but thoughtfully designing tools built to enhance democratic engagement from connection to action. Public engagement has long been too time-consuming and costly for governments to sustain, but AI offers tools to make participation more systematic and impactful. Our new Reboot Democracy Workshop Series replaces lectures with hands-on sessions that teach the practical “how-to’s” of AI-enhanced engagement.

Democracy And Ai Ash Center

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