The book structurally and thematically spans across several important issues which AI as a digital technology brings into the citizen-government relations, methodologically relying on literature and policy review, workshops, focus groups and semi-structured interviews with authorities in citizen participation, online platforms and artificial intelligence. It begins with the conceptualization of AI and ends with the ramifications of civic tech as the technology used to increase citizens participation and civic engagement.
In between, it explores the most common positive and negative effects which algorithms, automation and big data exert over citizen participation in policy making. In fact, given that the participation of citizens in policy-making is a direct expression of popular sovereignty and this participation is based on the assumption that citizens are 1 well informed 2 consulted and 3 included in the decision process, the author presents in separate chapters how the use of AI contributes to these assumptions.
A separate chapter is dedicated to the global context in which information is often weaponized to influence the geo political landscape. We will leave it to the imagination and personal biases of the reader to guess the particular country at question whose operations abroad seek to reduce, so goes the framing narrative, the influence of liberal democracies and democratic values.
Rhetorically, the style of writing is restrained and agreeable rather than polemical in its almost impeccable juxtaposition of various referenced opinions. The book actually abounds in well-referenced considerations from multidisciplinary literature and relies heavily on institutional and international policy documents, recommendations and definitions. At points, this can cause and propagate a sense of losing the wood for the trees in the argument line near to the impression one is left with after having read an EU-research policy document as such.
Handy AI taxonomies that take into account conceptual and research perspectives have been adapted from different sources and presented. And while the task the author has taken upon himself is both commendable and timely, particularly given the relevance of the question of AI to the democratic project in terms of who is using this technology, for what purpose, how does the use of AI influence the trust of citizens in the democratic institutions and power relations in policy-making, the philosophical questioning within which it sets to answer these questions on occasions remains sketchy.
