Augmented Assembly

• Augmented Assembly 27 Sep 2023 10:31 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: RoscoHunter’s comment on: GPT-4 for per­sonal pro­duc­tivity: on­line dis­trac­tion blocker

  Agreed

• Augmented Assembly 27 Feb 2023 18:47 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Augmented Assembly’s comment on: Aug­mented Assem­bly’s Shortform

  ‘Citizen Participation and Machine Learning for a Better Democracy’ Abstract:

  The development of democratic systems is a crucial task as confirmed by its selection as one of the Millennium Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations. In this article, we report on the progress of a project that aims to address barriers, one of which is information overload, to achieving effective direct citizen participation in democratic decision-making processes. The main objectives are to explore if the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning can improve citizens’ experience of digital citizen participation platforms. Taking as a case study the “Decide Madrid” Consul platform, which enables citizens to post proposals for policies they would like to see adopted by the city council, we used NLP and machine learning to provide new ways to (a) suggest to citizens proposals they might wish to support; (b) group citizens by interests so that they can more easily interact with each other; (c) summarise comments posted in response to proposals; (d) assist citizens in aggregating and developing proposals. Evaluation of the results confirms that NLP and machine learning have a role to play in addressing some of the barriers users of platforms such as Consul currently experience.

• Augmented Assembly 27 Feb 2023 18:44 UTC

  2 points

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  on: Aug­mented Assem­bly’s Shortform

  The potential positive links between AI and Politics is a topic that I believe isn’t given enough time. I would recommended the wonderful paper ‘Citizen Participation and Machine Learning for a Better Democracy’ as an introduction for anyone who is interested. Equally, for a shorter specific example of how these two forces can interact I would recommend the LessWrong Post ‘African Wild Dogs Vote By Sneezing—Can AI Help Us Do Better?’

• Augmented Assembly 8 Feb 2023 15:47 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: the gears to ascension’s comment on: Afri­can Wild Dogs Vote By Sneez­ing—Can AI Help Us Do Bet­ter?

  Thank you for the considered feedback, I will go through over it with an editor I know. Also, if you really like the idea please feel free to write your own post on, or inspired by, Augmented Assembly

• Augmented Assembly 8 Feb 2023 9:03 UTC

  2 points

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  in reply to: the gears to ascension’s comment on: Afri­can Wild Dogs Vote By Sneez­ing—Can AI Help Us Do Bet­ter?

  Thank you very much for the positive feedback and upvote. I would certainly be willing to edit my post further. Admittedly, I wanted to condense the proposal into a ~5mins read and if people wanted more depth they could view my sources. However, this constraint may have made my writing become overly condensed and loose readability. I will think about your general feedback but I would also be happy to consider altering any specific elements you found to be the least legible.

• Augmented Assembly 6 Feb 2023 23:20 UTC

  3 points

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  in reply to: Jeff Rose’s comment on: Afri­can Wild Dogs Vote By Sneez­ing—Can AI Help Us Do Bet­ter?

  This is true, and it is very fair to bring up that a nuanced communication pathway does currently exist; however, it is arguably not an effective mechanism. I am skeptical of how “listened to” people who write to their legislator truly feel. Gratification from this act will likely be unreliable and highly delayed. Thus, the main barrier is not so much the effort to communicate, although I certainly don’t think that this is a non-trivial factor, but the experience derived from such communication. In an app or website, there could be a level of immediate gratification and challenge from interaction with one’s peers. This should make the process feel less isolating, and the knowledge that your viewpoints will be directly incorporated into a potential briefing paper alongside a community of others with similar beliefs provides a very different user experience than sending an email or letter. I want to note that I certainly agree with you that much of the barrier is the effort needed to critically evaluate an issue, but I would argue that the apathy, malaise, and tribalism preventing this effort are caused by a sense of political isolation, thus fixing the communication pathways may allow for a feedback loop of ever greater engagement.