Can AI civic technology invigorate democracy in Scotland?
Venue
Seminar Room 2, Chrystal Macmillan Building and ZoomDescription
Part of the Controversies in the Data Society 2025 series
A cross-disciplinary series of public lectures and discussion on AI and the datafication of society
Civic technology is a long-established tradition of exploring how computer-mediated communications and information could improve community and governance. We are all familiar with online petition, hashtag political campaigns and neighbourhood social media. One of the most established approaches is how these technologies can be used to support community dialogue and deliberative democracy. With the advent of new language technologies AI there is considerable interest in what role this will play. In this session we invite two experts, Dr Stuart Lynn, founder of the Scottish company Crowdshy, and Iñaki Goñi, an expert in large-scale deliberative democracy.
Speakers
Dr Stuart Lynn
CrownShy
Dr Stuart Lynn is the co-founder and CTO of CrownShy, a company that works at the crossroads of technology, facilitation practices and dialogue, empowering individuals, groupI and societies to enhance self-determination. Crowdshy recently won a contract from the Scottish Government to develop and test AI-supported civic technology tools. [Crown-shy.com]
Comhairle: A new end to end deliberative democracy platform for Scotland
The last decade has witnessed a proliferation of field-tested digital tools aimed at expanding deliberative democracy across online and offline spaces. Despite this vibrant ecosystem's growth, its fragmented and disconnected nature poses challenges: organisations struggle to integrate multiple tools into cohesive deliberative processes, while facilitators must invest significant time mastering each tool to harness its full potential.
CrownShy's Comhairle platform addresses these challenges by unifying the most effective open-source tools into streamlined, reusable, deliberative workflows. This presentation explores the technological, sociological, cultural and design hurdles involved in developing such a platform, outlines our strategic approach to overcoming these obstacles, and examines how Comhairle aims to strengthen the deliberative democracy movement, both in Scotland and internationally.
Iñaki Goñi
PhD candidate, STIS, University of Edinburgh
Iñaki Goñi is a doctoral candidate in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies (STIS) at the University of Edinburgh, researching the intersection between democracy and technology. Previously a lecturer at the Catholic University of Chile, he collaborated in large-scale participatory initiatives in Latin America and is now leading the data strategy for the forthcoming Global Citizen Assembly on Climate. He serves as the Associate Director of the Centre for Science, Knowledge, and Policy (SKAPE) in Edinburgh and was recently elected to the Council of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST).
The invisible infrastructures of a new democracy: Deliberative Democracy and the Role of Civic Tech
This talk explores the intersection of deliberative democracy and civic technology, tracing the origins and foundational concepts of the civic tech landscape. It will also examine the key drivers behind the growing significance of these tools and platforms within the deliberative democracy discourse. Drawing on first-hand experience, I'll discuss some of the challenges and opportunities I have faced while developing a data strategy for the upcoming Global Citizen Assembly on Climate. How should we approach this new infrastructure of (a new) democracy?
- Reading recommendation
Goñi, J. (2024). Make it make sense: the challenge of data analysis in global deliberation. Deliberative Democracy Digest: https://www.publicdeliberation.net/make-it-make-sense-the-challenge-of-data-analysis-in-global-deliberation/
Landemore, Hélène, 'Can Artificial Intelligence Bring Deliberation to the Masses?', in Ruth Chang, and Amia Srinivasan (eds), Conversations in Philosophy, Law, and Politics (Oxford, 2024; online edn, Oxford Academic, 30 Apr. 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198864523.003.0003,
Optional:
Romberg, J., & Escher, T. (2024). Making sense of citizens’ input through artificial intelligence: a review of methods for computational text analysis to support the evaluation of contributions in public participation. Digital Government: Research and Practice, 5(1), 1-30.
Goñi, J., Fuentes, C. & Raveau, M. (2023). An experiential account of a large-scale interdisciplinary data analysis of public engagement. AI & SOCIETY. DOI: 10.1007/s00146-022-01457-4