Marco Cappato & Francesco Vecchi discuss how AI can empower democracy

Welcome on another episode of Democracy

Innovator podcast and our guest of today

are Marco Kapat and Franchesco

and

thank you for your time.

>> Thank you.

>> And you're working on um a humans,

right? What is a movement?

>> Humans is a panuropean movement of

popular initiative. What does it mean?

um a movement that is directly European,

so open to the membership of people all

around Europe um without the need of

passing through national organization.

So is a directly citizens movement um

directly at the European dimension and

is political but non-electural so

popular initiative because

we uh do politics in political

initiatives but through the tools of

civic particip participation at European

level for example the European citizens

initiatives

but also national, regional and local uh

level because we think that the two main

limits and problems of democracy

nowadays are first of all democracy is

mainly national but the problem of our

era are mainly transnational supra and

and infraational also and we also think

that uh uh elections, electoral

democracy is uh too uh concentrated

focused on shortterm consensus

um

in front of problems that need long-term

solutions. So there is the need to

complement electoral democracy,

national electoral democracy through a

robust dose, a strong dose of panuropean

citizen

u democracy, direct participation.

>> Yeah, let let me add a couple of things.

I do think that what Marco said is uh

really true. Um the point is that humans

was also born to fill in the gaps of a

few dissatisfactions.

um we believe of citizens in general but

especially know we started from the

Italian use case and the satisfaction

were not only the scope of the

participation meaning you know national

versus international but also the

satisfaction that a lot of widespread uh

a lot of campaigns a lot of ideas that

would be widespread ac among the public

so I don't know for example euthanasia

rights or abortion rights and other

things didn't really find any match into

the political debate because any party

is a bit worried of losing some specific

constituencies, they would be against

that. And since party politics is about

gaining consensus and gaining, let's

say, quantitative consensus, no one can

um can really afford losing that kind of

political support. Therefore, we do

believe that there are some topics that

should be discussed outside uh or at

least that whose discussion should be

complemented outside of a usual

representative democracy. This is the

case again for uh transversal political

uh initiatives.

>> And now you are both working on a

campaign called Civic AI, right?

>> Yes, we do.

>> What is CV AI?

>> H well uh this is a very tough question.

Uh maybe I can step in here. uh the

problem in defining civic artificial

intelligence is that we are first of all

speaking of uh a moving target under so

many different layers. The technology

itself is a moving target. The

technology itself is extremely complex

and you know it is multi-layered. It

starts from the infrastructure. Then it

gets to the layer of how data are

collect, stored, gathered and used. And

then there is the um then there is the

level of the algorithm and then there is

the level of the software and then there

is the level of the interface with users

and effects that artificial intelligence

might have on specific users and

citizens. Therefore u it's not only the

technology uh which is a moving target

but the regulation of the technology is

a moving target on its own. I mean we

have the example of the European Union

and other places in the world are

starting to uh regulating AI of course

with completely different approaches uh

compared to the European Union's one. Uh

but then another problem is also that uh

that I can say the dissemination of this

technology into the um contemporary

public sphere and especially the digital

sphere is constantly changing because we

are also getting used to the different

applications. So um is civic AI a fight

against disinformation generative AI le

disinformation is civic AI uh how can I

say um the campaign for ensuring that

each specific layer that I mentioned

earlier uh complies with European values

and democratic values? Is it a campaign

for increasing and enhancing civic

participation online also through the

support of CVKI chat bots or virtual

assistants or platforms? I mean the

point is that CVKI is a bit of

everything. Um maybe I I'll leave the

floor to Marco to explain what was the

original idea of CVKI and then I can get

back the word to explain you know what

we did in the last few months and what

we are uh trying to what we uh what we

plan to do in the coming uh weeks and

months.

>> Yes. uh well I will start from the

consideration that uh uh almost I think

99.999%

of investment

of huge immense amount of money poured

into uh artificial intelligence in the

current times is driven by either

commercial purpose profit company either

uh control, warfare,

uh security. Um

but there is virtually no investment or

really marginal

um

uh on the use of AI to empower the

citizen.

Um that's exactly the meaning of civic

AI artificial intelligence as a public

service. There is no major um invention

and uh technological advancement that

didn't have both the private uh

commercial use but at the same time the

issue of how this invention could be

provided as a public service. Let's

think about I don't know power,

electricity, gas, mobility, cars and so

on. Um the revolution that we are

experiencing that is already triggered

um is there is a lot of debate on how we

should regulate and limits the the risk

of abuse, manipulation and so on. But

there is no real discussion and most

most important no real big plan and

investment on how this revolution could

also not as an alternative but also be

used to benefit the citizens and empower

the citizens on those issues without

direct commercial interest. The first

example, the main one probably is

democracy.

Uh we know that democracy is uh in a big

is is in a big crisis. There is lower

and lower participation rates,

attendance rate to elections and people

are losing faith and trust on how

democracy could really help in

giving solutions to the problem of daily

life. So the idea of empowering through

artificial intelligence the possibility

of citizens uh of dialoguing and acting

with institution and among themselves to

find solution for their life for the

quality of their life for the quality of

the envir of the environment. This is

something that we cannot hope that will

be solved by big tech in Silicon Valley

or in China. This is a political problem

that need to be um replied with a

political solution at the public

institutional level. And the European

Union is the only dimension that could

in a way uh federate aggregate what is

already existing as civic use of

artificial intelligence to make them

interoperable to unite them and to

create a digital ecosystem

um to empower the citizens in the daily

life. So uh the this is the idea of

having of having also this path for the

future of artificial intelligence not

only the current paths that uh billions

of billions of billions of billions are

invested and attracted and attracted to.

Yes, if I may add something on this and

if I thank you Marco for mentioning you

know the need for creating a I can say

an ecosystem a digital ecosystem. This

is exactly uh one of the most important

things to clarify when we speak about

civic AI. Uh what we do have in mind is

trying to outline a European digital

public sphere. Uh since you know

technologies in general but especially

AI are influencing every single aspect

of how we do interact publicly. So

they're influencing the way information

is shared. They're influencing the way

we interact with public organizations or

public institutions. They are

influencing also our daily lives. We

must ensure that everything in our you

know in the in this mixed reality in

this hybrid reality that we are living

through you know which is mixing um can

I say physical assets and digital assets

we must ensure that this also exists at

the same uh this is per this is

permeated by democratic values at the

same time while this was the gen the

original idea of the petition maybe not

all of you know that any citizen in the

European Union can um how can I say uh

can submit a petition to the European

Parliament. Uh and this is was exactly

what Marco did supported by some experts

especially from Italy but not only from

Italy. Um the uh what happened to the

petition was that the petition was first

examined by the um committee of the

European Parliament dedicated to

petitions and then we were asked to

present it uh in April 2025 in front of

the of the committee. In that case,

Marco asked me to go simply because I

was in Brussels and um and after in that

case we gathered the support of all

representatives from all me or all

groups of the parliament for our

initiative. In that I must admit that in

that case we didn't not only uh present

again the petition was already existing

and you can still find on our website

but what we tried to outline is exactly

this the panuropean digital public

sphere and this public sphere was

composed of four main strands. The first

one is a civic assistance. So we you

know in our effort to explain what we

mean with civic AI the first uh

visualization that we got was a sort of

chatbot of victory assistant that would

help any citizen navigate not only the

complex framework of the European Union

but especially the all the participatory

opportunities the deliberative

opportunities they can jump in and in

general gather u insights and feedback

on how they can actively participate in

the European democracy. There are plenty

of of things that citizens can do. For

example, um provide feedback to open

consultations of the European

Commission. This is going to be

important also for later on. Um they can

on the have your say portal. They can

for instance uh participate in the

citizens engagement forum. Sometimes

there are uh participatory and

deliberative initiatives such as uh was

uh the conference on the future of

Europe. But in most cases people simply

don't know. And what we have to um what

we have to accept uh when you do

politics is that citizens are getting

used not even at having you know

services delivered as a softwares or as

as platforms but they're getting used of

having services delivered through

virtual assistants and chatbots. This is

the main trend that we see. So we would

like that public services not only as

the public the services uh given by

public authorities but also democracy

which is a public service in its own. I

mean it is so trivial admitting this but

still you know sometimes we do forget

that democracy should be a public

service in its own well we must ensure

that they are provided in the most

citizenfriendly way uh why am I

mentioning all of this was just in fact

the first trend that there are other

trend for example we mentioned the

participatory dashboard so let's say a

sort of platform that once you sign in

with your ideally European digital

identity according to the data you

provide to the specific platform. You

see all the participatory initiatives

that you can uh partic that you can join

depending of course on your res

residency rights, your nationality

rights, your citizenship rights and and

so on and so forth. And third there was

the liberation. creating a sort of tool

that would help public deliberation

through all the techn including AI but

through other technologies that help

create collective intelligence among

topics and I mean these technologies

already existed again in the platform

for the conference on the future of

Europe. So we're not saying to deploy

something completely new but just to

adapt what's existing to a slightly

different scope. And finally but this is

probably one of the most important

layers um there is what we call the

democracy data commons. So the concept

of data commerce and I know that Marco

probably would like to add something on

that as well. Um but the the concept of

data commerce is creating these sort of

data spaces that are public not

necessarily publicly managed but

definitely publicly owned and publicly

controlled and governed not necessarily

again by a government like let's say the

European Commission but it might be by

third authorities or independent

authorities like the European data uh

protection supervisor but this data uh

this data space would collect all the

data regarding the democratic

participation online and civic

participation online. Why is it

paramount? Because currently there are

plenty of participatory tools, participy

tools, but sometimes they are either um

can I say the data is either stored by

specific private oriented actors or they

they are stored even outside of the EU.

There are some platforms that are based

in the UK and this of course would

create some issues in for any um can I

say panuropean digital democracy tool

because I mean if your data is not even

under European law then of course you

know this raises issues. I could go on

with the next step. So probably uh I

would like Marco to spend a couple of

words on data com because he recently

had an idea also on this. I would like

to know the Alexandra's reaction because

we gave you a lot of information. So

what what what idea have you made out of

all of this of what civic artificial

intelligence could be? Sorry if I ask a

question instead of replying.

>> I like the question and I'm thinking

about all the interesting things that

you mentioned mentioned earlier. Um I'm

thinking about how information is power.

I mean if citizen knows what they can do

then they have also the power to do it

but uh as Franchesca said like often the

citizen doesn't know what he can

actually do and uh

and I was wondering like uh this uh

dissatisfaction that citizen has so we

have seen also how people maybe uh I

mean they still vote there there are

election but we cannot say that

representative democracy is at

uh the itest um it's not the itest

moment for representative democracy

and uh I totally agree about uh uh the

possibilities that we have now using

technology

uh to make um

um politics more accessible for citizens

uh because as you said like um

Franchesco with a chatbot maybe it's

easier to uh to tell to a citizen and

what he can do or what are the

possibilities

and uh I'm thinking also about the the

digital ecosystem that is also something

very important

uh because probably uh I can imagine

that several platforms are needed

several expertises

and um

and yeah I totally also agree about uh

how to that uh it it is necessary to

break the circle

of um of technology used for control or

for commercial reasons. Um

and actually uh it was uh yesterday I

was at the table with some uh PhD

students that that are studying these

kind of things and uh we were also

thinking about what is the CVKI uh

because I asked them uh the question and

uh it is actually not an easy uh thing

to

uh it's not actually easy um but yeah I

I think

>> maybe do some examples that could be

useful. Maybe also for for those who

probably could think, okay, but

do we really want the state or Europe or

the European Union be an actor in the

artificial intelligence race? Is this

realistic or is really something that is

suitable even more than realistic? Well,

um let's think about for example

platforms for civic participation

uh nowadays if you want to take an

initiative maybe in your own

neighborhood in your own city council uh

because you need to ask uh I don't know

the respect of a park of a green area

and so on what you do what are the tools

Usually you have this alternative. On

one side you have uh social media. You

can open pages uh on Facebook, launch

debates on Tik Tok and Instagram and so

on. But you know that the algorithm

will uh um will will in a way will push

um will push the the the content would

push the content that are polarized

uh and aggressive or with a very strong

idea and proposal. But civic

participation should follow another

logic because you don't need to sell

publicity advertisement products. So uh

the unfortunately

civic participation

uh the tools the non-commercial tools

for civic participation are boring or

non-existence or technologically

I mean not even digital sometimes you

don't even have a possibility of digital

interaction. So let's think about how

important would be to have a platform

for digital participation empowered with

artificial intelligence user friendly

and at the same time with an algorithm

conceived in a way uh that uh dialogue

is promoted

uh to speak but also to listen to have a

real interaction among citizens. Okay.

And uh many

local civic digital things exist around

Europe but they are not interconnected.

they are not uh uh you have you don't

have a single sign on

uh to uh like

to have access to all the digital tools

of interaction with the state and with

other citizens around Europe. So this

could be one of the concrete outcome of

an ecosystem of civic of European civic

AI to have uh interoperability

of platform of democratic

participations.

uh and this is not something that a

giant in Silicon Valley or in China

could do even because uh democracy is a

two delicate things. You need to have

for example when we are talking about

signing with a formal legal value a

petition or a proposal of referendum or

a ballot. the state is the only out is

is the only authority that can identify

and certify that signature as as as a

real one. So to uh to ensure the

legality of the process. So this is why

we think that even if

um the technological race toward

artificial intelligence is not something

that the state could play or should play

a competition role. Uh from the point of

view of the user of the citizens

uh the empowerment with artificial

intelligencebased system could be

crucial in having their rights,

democratic rights but even so social

rights on civic participation for public

goods for example for the as a user of

public goods. uh this dimension needs to

be uh empowered through a political

choice of investment by public

authorities.

>> Yes. Again um let me let me take a step

back to move a step forward. So um

whenever we speak about CVI sometimes

people get the impression that we do

want the European Union or whatever a

public actual in the regard to develop a

platform or develop a chatbot and put it

in the hands of the citizens. uh I mean

developing this kind of tools is

extremely expensive and not always

public institutions do have the talent

pool needed to develop something and

would effectively work and in that case

case again you know as Marco was saying

I mean we they would put themselves into

competition with the private actors that

have more money more talent and more

expertise in the field so why did I

mention to take a step back let's have a

look at the European digital wallet and

the EI does framework what did the

European do union do in in that regard

They first of all developed a framework

that would define would outline some

rules some guidelines on how to deploy

softwares and tools for uh trust service

providers for digital identity that

happened I mean I don't remember if five

10 years ago the first version and then

recently the second version was uh

published

according to the frameworks that were

deployed by the European Union basically

the assumption was okay if you comply

with these frameworks and you deploy a

specific tool then this tool will

receive that kind of public

certification that Marco was mentioning

earlier. They created uh a sort of uh

market incentive. In that case, for

example, in Italy, we had the deployment

of two main tools. On the one hand, you

have speed. On the other hand, you have

uh the electronic digital identity. Two

completely different structures. They

are slightly different, but let's say

that both comply with the eidas

framework. What happened then that with

that with those tools for example Monaco

and especially Luka Kushon and other

actors in Italy they both forgetting the

possibility of signing digitally

referendums which means you know that

these platforms that just received

market incentive they say because they

were complying with rules with laws so

they could be used for anything public

and official then now they are actually

used for signing official referendum or

at least the proposal sorry market and

make a mistake. Why am I mentioning all

of this? Well, because for example,

something that the European can you

union can do is this. First of all,

write a sort of framework for what is uh

what is needed for a electronic

participation tool to be compliant with

the EU law and to be officially recogni

for any interaction happening on this to

be officially recognized by the European

Union. Second, deploy as I was

mentioning a sort of data space for

democracy in order to and binding every

actor uh private or public may be to uh

store the data and to manage the data

through that data space which is public

publicly owned. Of course you know

people it is open but people cannot get

access to um personalized data but they

can only access to anonymized data for

doing research and whatever and then

deploy always the European Union a sort

of a single sign on platform may it be a

chatbot may it be a I don't know a

dashboard or whatever uh where you can

sign up with your European digital

identity and once you're signed up I

mean depending on your data okay you get

what is it that you see? What you see is

not only the participatory opportunities

that you're in, but every municipality,

every level of governance can upload a

participatory uh process online,

choosing themselves the specific tool

they use, but with the data that goes

again to the democracy data commerce.

Why is this solution more feasible than

deploying a chatbot uh by the eur the

public administration? Because for

example this would not only um how can I

say um this would uh only require

interoperability of all the systems

especially with the European digital

wallet. They would not this would not

necessarily require a centralized uh

data storage. This would not require a

centralized tool but it would in fact

allow for a proliferation of

decentralized tools.

So on decentralization in fact I can

move a step forward. You know you asked

us it's not so easy to understand what

civic AI is okay everything that I just

mentioned is not even AI I mean there

could be a virtual assistant or a

chatbot that would help you navigate

across all these platforms or whatever

there could be some machine learning

systems again you know to uh regulate

the debate online according to specific

rules there can be some um I don't know

um yeah some complex data analysis for

creating collective intelligence on

specific participatory processes again

these are also AI technologies but can

be achieved even with other

technologies. Um but when we speak about

civic AI we could also mention again for

example the infrastructure layer. So

currently as Marco was saying the AI

market is extremely centralized by few

monopolies that own not only can I say

that the software and they do not really

allow anyone to understand what are the

weights what is the whole process they

use because of course they base your

business model on that but the problem

is that often times what is centralized

is infrastructures

uh I've recently gone to the I recently

been to the Mozilla uh festival in

Barcelona and there I attended to a

session that was speaking of how a

federated AI system is possible. So

different organizations, different

places can have their I don't know data

servers or or whatever is need to deploy

an artificial intelligence system and

then what they can do is to federate the

system so that the data is still owned

by any specific organization but their

AI models are trained on all the data.

So they can run all over the data but

yet you know this data doesn't get

centralized. So again why am I

mentioning this when it comes to civic?

Because one of the questions that we

have to ask ourselves is do we want AI

to be held by a monopoly may it be

public or private or do we want it also

to reflect the uh values of democracy of

even competition in a way that are

embodied in the European Union at the

infrastructural level as well. And there

again I mean we can start conversations

on for example um even on blockchain

technologies on distributed ledger

technologies and how to use them. But

just to this is just to understand that

beyond visualizing what civic AI is.

What is important to understand is that

artificial intelligence is a general

technology as much as was the internet

and as such it affects many different

layers and uh translating our democratic

values and our civic values into AI to

make to enhance a civic participation

and not reduce it you know through

profilation and through um I can say the

increase of misinformation whatsoever.

Well, we really need to reflect at all

the different layers of this technology

and in this regard probably Europe if it

would if it would adopt a different

approach compared to the other two

giants especially US and China well

probably it would really find their way

of being competitive in the market

through a more democratic approach to

technology which is not only reflected

in I don't know huge words like

trustworthy citizencentric and blah blah

regulation that is only risk based as it

is now

It's very interesting the the data space

uh thing. It's also something that with

some people that are developing civic

tech tools we were thinking about uh uh

because let's say there is a sit citizen

assembly I don't know in Italy and then

another one in uh in Germany then uh if

the topic is similar then it will be uh

worth it maybe to have a connection

between the two uh citizen assembly to

understand better what citizens want and

uh

>> and yeah it's it's are interested in

these things.

>> And

maybe we could uh we could raise a

question which are the only data that uh

uh a dict a dictatorship will never have

access to because we know that for

example in China uh there is no

privacy issue. So every data are

collected

uh in a massive way without privacy

restrictions. So

we think we tend to think which is true

they have a huge competitive advantage

in terms of the amount of data they can

use to train artificial intelligence for

commercial and control purpose. But

which is the data set they will never

have the democratic participation data

set. If we as Europe, if we would make

systematic

the promotion of civic participation,

citizens assembly, local democracy,

local referendum, local ballot proposal,

regional, national, European and those

data anonymized of course how

huge value we could extract. act from it

in terms of what are the needs of the

people, the priorities for their own

lives. And if you combine this to the

data

that are owned by public authorities

because we also tend to think okay now

Silicon Valley they have all our

personal data because we are on uh the

iPhone and Facebook and Tik Tok and so

on. But uh we don't have to forget that

uh for the time being maybe in 10 years

it will be different but the huge the

the biggest amount of data it's still in

the hands of the state even if the state

is not using as uh Silicon Valley is

using but the health data for example

uh are detained by the state uh the

justice related the justice system data

but all the the public activity that are

producing data that sometimes are not

even collected by the state. So this is

why uh at the European level we could

create a dimension

for the use for the collection and use

of public data for public purpose. And

we could al we could also add the

possibility of voluntarily donate

our personal data anonymized of course

to uh to in a way to to to nourish to

make grow this uh public data data set.

So uh um I think that even at the level

of data that we tend to think that is a

lost battle because the giant of

artificial intelligence are treating

amount of data that the the public

entity will never will never be able to

use. I think this is not true

is it is not true. If we choose to

invest on the creation on the treatment

on the collection and the treatment of

those data, of course, if we stay uh

steady and looking what is happening

without doing anything, I think that uh

unfortunately the the the state and the

and the public dimension of institution

and the public interest will become less

and less That's relevant because uh if

the world is changing without and

outside public institution and public

interest and the democracy well

democracy will lose value. It will not

be any longer an activity

uh

considered

strongly considered by the people as an

activity able to improve their lives and

this would be the final defeat for

democracy not the crisis but but really

the defeat. So this is why to invest on

on this

macro level that we called civic AI and

as Francho explained can mean many many

different things is really a political

strategical choice that has to be made

but it's a eurent choice because in 10

years the amount of money that would be

collected for commercial purposes if we

don't do The same thing for public use

purposes would be

would be

so so bigger uh that the it would be a

lost battle to try to include public

interest logic and citizens le logic in

the race in the in the artificial

intelligence race.

Well yes this let me add something I

mean let me go back to what I said

earlier I think that in the last few

decades we forgot that democracy is a

public service I mean let's think about

that you know most of the public debate

happens on digital platforms that are

profitled and private owned not even

inside of the European Union uh I mean I

I think that both Mark and I have

nothing against businesses okay that's

not the problem but the problem is that

if the public debate happens mostly on

private own um platforms. It means that

those who uh own the platform can

dictate the rules and this is the reason

for which I mean back in the days I mean

let's not speak about Trump and now you

know what's happening for example on

platforms like meta Facebook and blah

blah uh for what concern for example

feminist content and whatsoever but

before Trump stepped in these platforms

that are mostly uh US based would follow

the the the policies of the the

government back in the days which was

the democratic government and therefore

I mean you saw that Donald Trump was

just banned from uh Twitter after

January the 6th and I mean there were

other uh contents that were you know

censored or limited and whatsoever. I

mean even though we can agree that those

content must be censored the point is

that who is in charge of censoring them

and this must be the public if we decide

to censor them or this debate must be

held on a public platforms until it is

held on private platform this is going

to be a problem but most of us simply

accepted that since there are these huge

marketplaces let's say this huge single

sign on prices so I mean one size fits

all and everyone has to go there if I

were the representative newspaper I

would seriously think but do we really

want to communicate what we do on this

social network uh and this is just one

one case okay uh let's take another one

uh there are some especially local uh

public institutions that are already

deploying chat bots and virtual

assistants to interact with the public

that often times they are extremely

limited like they they only answer to

you know questions about what are the

services that they provide. And if you

ask a questions for in question for

instance uh who is going to be the

candidate at the next municipal

elections in my town, they do not

provide that answer. They don't have it

even though they are the public

authority and at some point you know

they will have to register you know

these elections how the who will win or

not. Uh but the other problem is also

that um it's I think it's news from the

last month um Microsoft so meaning

Copilot

uh bought the license for a lot of data

from Harvard Medical School. Most likely

this happened because they want to make

copilot the most trustworthy uh chatbot

for what concerns data on uh even basic

health which means that you would ask

copilot if you can take paracetamol

while you're drinking or vice versa.

Okay. But these kind of basic medical

questions should be deployed by the

public. I mean this should be a question

of you know public uh health services.

Why is it a private uh company that

would get all these interaction data and

understand what are the needs of the

citizens and then can use the data to

provide even further services.

There are I mean again neither Mark or I

are against businesses. Uh personally I

have no issues with that but the point

is that there is a series of services

that must be deployed by the public or

otherwise we are creating a very tricky

situation.

>> I totally agree. I'm thinking that maybe

this uh difference is also something

that uh um I mean US and Europe have

different approach to health uh one that

is more public and one more private and

um

I have a lot of other questions but I

don't know if you have more time

um

or if

>> I can stay until one as I said Oh, I

don't know Mark if he has to step out

already.

>> I have a few minutes because I need to

go. So if uh there is a last question

for me then I will leave you for the

final. Yeah, it is. Uh so all this

ecosystem, all the data space and so on

could maybe lead to some uh uh to a

society where all citizens are also

active maybe uh where they can actually

participate. Do you feel that this is

possible? I I mean in in in society

already

um cooperation

has plays a big role. We are not only

uh

I mean there are plenty of uh nonprofit

dimensions of our private life uh even

uh from from family relationship and

friends and also the relationship with

the community and and we know how how

this is important as Franchesco said is

not against

uh uh the the the market or

u

is is not alternative. But we do a lot

of things because we like to do to to

for cooperation and uh

in a way to to be useful to the others

or also for our uh own interests through

democratic participation

because we have to defend our rights and

even our economic interests. So the the

political dimension

uh and the social dimensions are

a very important part of our society.

The risk is that if artificial

intelligence empowers

only the part of our life

uh which is

um dominated by the logic or is included

in the logic of uh market interaction.

the social dimension of our life risk to

lose

uh weight to lose importance in our own

life and at the contrary I think that uh

if we would be able in an easy way in a

consumerfriendly way to reinforce to

raise the part of our life dedicated to

society and the others we would do that.

So I think that well it would be naive

to to think that everybody want to

participate that everybody want to uh

make political initiative is not what I

think. But at the same time, if it would

make um if if it would if it would be

made much more easier to do so,

uh that would we would uh uh see a huge

increase in quantity and quality of

civic participation and socially driven

action. see this. I really do believe

because human being is a social. Sorry

if I interrupt you but I mean uh just to

ask you I mean what happened with the

Italian platform for uh presenting the

referend online

>> there was a blossoming of proposals was

>> this was a huge change because nowadays

you have uh a lot of ballot and even

referendum proposal that are made easier

at least in the collection of signature

phases. But of course uh democracy is

not about just about voting but not even

just about signing. Democracy is

something more is uh uh being formed

discussing is a dialogue. There are a

lot of processes that should be

facilitated before the moment of voting

or signing something. So this is the

ecosystem with that we need to build

thanks to digital innovation and we are

not doing so if not in in marginal ways

in marginal experiment at the local

level or sometime at national level but

there is no the um

the the the the political

uh really decision of following doing

this path of choosing this priority for

the evolution of the democratic state.

This would be important to provoke uh

with the with this action. This is what

we are asking to public authorities to

do.

>> Thank you a lot.

>> Thank you. I listen to you but I will

not speak anymore because I'm on the

move. Thank you. Thank you again.

And

>> yeah, I don't know if you have another

question because

>> yeah, maybe another question could be

like uh if you have a message uh for the

people that are actively searching for

new solution for

uh related to citizen participation,

maybe they're developing software. Maybe

they are trying to do something like

CVKI but I don't know in another

continent somewhere else like um yeah if

you have a message for them uh

>> yes I mean this is a message not only

for them but for ourselves as well. I

mean uh there are plenty of platforms

for civic engagement and democratic

participation online. There are plenty

solutions, believe me dozens. Uh, but I

think that most of them have already

been interviewed in this podcast in my

in my point of view. Um, sometimes when

we deploy these tools, we tend to think

more of the offer

and supply, let's say, and lessen the

demand. Uh, this is something that Mark

and I would like to investigate,

something that humans keeps, you know,

reflecting on. I mean, is there really

demand for more democracy? Is there

really demand for more participation?

And under what terms, in what shape?

What I was mentioning earlier, you know,

about that everyone is getting used to

interacting with chatbots and virtual

assistants as the first way of

interacting digitally. That was not the

case five years ago. That was not the

case 15 years ago. Um, we I do think

that we should not only think of the

tool and make the tool perfect, but

thinking of something that is really

used and effective for citizen and

answers to their demands. Otherwise we

are creating cathedral in the desert.

I totally agree about uh listening to

their demands because uh sometimes uh

this is a question that that I ask I

asked myself a lot of times why people

are not participating

and then uh I thought maybe they are

participating already. It's just that uh

I don't see it

and so I really agree that we should

listen and be

>> No, they are participating. I mean um

Marco said it but he didn't use these

words but p when we say panuropean we

mean transnational and translocal. Uh

something I were getting while

interacting with pe especially with

people that are not Italians even though

Italian base is our strongest uh

constituency is that they do engage a

lot but at the local level while

Italians are mostly used to engaging at

the national level or you know levels

that are not necessarily local. Uh why

is it relevant? Because I mean if you

deploy a tool you have to understand

that every different uh let's say at

least people at the if we if we are

thinking about the European Union let's

take the member state and let's define

the people the citizens of the member

states each people interacts with

democracy in completely different ways

and this is the result of centuries of

uh interactions at the local national

regional level and it highly depends on

the history of the specific country or

member state. um there's something to be

taken into account and the other point

is uh why have there been movements such

as um

um me too bright for future and then

there

black lives matter and so on and so

forth what or even now currently there

is my voice my choice which is a

European citizens initiative that

collected way more than 1 million

signatures and now it's interacting with

the European Parliament the European

Commission to push forward abortion

rights in Europe

uh why did these things work? Because

there was a strong demand behind there

were decades of debate or public opinion

built in this regard. I mean this is why

you know even participatory and

grassroots initiatives thrive the

regardless of the platform they use uh

but unless there is that demand people

are less involved in participating and

what is interesting in my point of view

is that I don't know if it is just

because of digital tools whatsoever but

clearly people are less engaged with

traditional politics that requires a

sort of tribal uh to accept you know a

series of values a series of proposals

you were part of the tribe and you

couldn't get out of the community. But

people can engage on single issues.

Even with completely different

perspectives, they can agree on a

specific topic. And this is the case for

example on Newton major rights. There

you have people from all over the

spectrum from the far left to the far

right depending on what do they do

believe is their need. They can you know

just forget that they come from a

tradition of from a political tradition

and then support an initiative. So I do

think that you know when it when it

comes to thinking about the needs of the

the demand of the service we don't have

just translate existing processes into

the digital world we do have to

completely rethink the processes

according to as Habermas would say this

new structural change of the public

sphere.

>> So let's change how this is uh

is actually working. I mean uh let's

think about new ways to make uh

participation easier u so that it can

happen everything that you and Marco

described in the

>> yes if you want to contribute to how we

think about how democra democratic

participation should happen digitally I

mean uh there is a page on our website

where you can join the campaign joining

the campaign means that you can get

access to our working groups and you can

co-create with us the proposal I mean

now we spoke about a lot we We gave you

a lot of information, a lot of ideas and

most of them are not Marcos nor minds.

They are just you know the ideas of the

community that got integrated in all our

activities. We try to co-create in this

campaign with everyone and we try to

experiment. So um currently I mean we

will soon move to discord. So we will

have a discord community for the

campaign. Uh we also already have a

desim page for some specific activities.

uh when I started coordinating the

campaign, I tried to co-create each any

feedback to the European uh commission's

public consultations together

experimenting with mentimeter or with

other methods for gathering collective

intelligence. Uh I mean we are trying

our way out because we do see that what

exists is not working and probably we

need to experiment and this is probably

what I like the most of this campaign.

We are literally building a political

pile from scratch and it's extremely

enthusi can say it's extremely exciting.

>> Absolutely. And thank you again

>> Thank you Alexandra for hosting us.

>> Thank you Alexandra for hosting us.