AI can help humans find common ground in democratic deliberation
Michael Henry Tessler, Michiel A. Bakker, and colleagues · 2024 · Science
Original research ↗ (new tab)FRONTIERS / AI, democracy, and public voice
The Civic Machine
Larkhaven needs a transit decision. Residents submit priorities, an AI produces a shared statement, and the council must decide what that statement authorizes. As an independent reviewer, follow a fictional consultation through dated documents, competing explanations and exact response counts. Two real studies examine AI mediation and persuasion, helping you ask what was tested and which institutional claims remain open. Construct possible response tables, defend a route and process under a budget and access rule, then investigate a different institution. Agreement is the beginning of your inquiry. Your task is to make a precise finding and explain what could change it.
Choose For fun / For class inside the activity. The same evidence and political problem remain available; class mode asks for the required responses. Save a local backup and a readable report before submitting through your course system.
Preparation & pacing
Built-in explanations introduce the studies. For a seminar, use the reading companion before discussion. Familiarity with basic concepts helps; the readings make the research question explicit.
Self-contained inquiry for introductory students · No advance reading required · Work in class or across sessions; student completion time has not yet been measured.
What you investigate
- Distinguish mediation, assigned advocacy, and changes in participation or measurement without treating all view changes as the same process.
- Explain the difference between summary endorsement, policy support, and observed political behavior.
- Defend a conditional finding, address a challenge, and propose a comparison that could change it.
- Read the fictional graph and exact table, calculate with the stated units and base, distinguish a numerical observation from a political inference, and defend it in a human-reviewed explanation.
- Reconcile endorsement optimization, majority-aligned opinion movement and minority textual contribution without equating them with equal political influence.
- Defend agenda rights, an access safeguard, a complaint route and an accountable binding decision under stated costs and timing.
- Generate a mechanism and credible same-step rival for an unfamiliar institution, predict differentiating evidence, then revise or defend using a late record.
The scholarship behind the case
Persuading voters using human–artificial intelligence dialogues
Hause Lin, Gabriela Czarnek, Benjamin Lewis, and colleagues · 2025 · Nature
Original research ↗ (new tab)The reading companion introduces the studies and distinguishes their findings from the fictional case. Original articles retain their own copyright and access conditions. A programmed result is not a measured effect in the world.
Start with a related activity
Access & permissions
This Possible States edition runs without student accounts or hosted class submissions. The study, decision, evidence and response tasks are retained. Your work stays on your device; a backup restores progress and a readable report can be submitted separately. Free educational use & licensing information →.
Created by Yoav Duman.