Thursday Seminars by Alvaro Oleart

Why AI Technosolutionism Harms Democracy and Deliberation 

Abstract

Technology has recently entered the scene of deliberative democracy, both as a subject of deliberation and as a way to improve deliberative processes. The hegemonic position in this debate within the deliberative democracy community appears to be that, while it is not a bulletproof solution, technology—and more specifically AI—holds the potential to make deliberation and democracy better. The article takes stock of the latest developments in relation to technology and deliberation, focusing specifically on the European Citizens’ Panels and Google’s Habermas Machine. We argue that the current trend is characterised by technosolutionism, and that introducing technology as a ‘solution’ to ‘fix’ some of the ‘problems’ within the deliberative democracy community reinforces its depoliticisation and disintermediation. Deliberative technosolutionism moves the discussion away from the systemic desirability of minipublics, sidelines a mass politics conception of democracy, and leaves unquestioned the political economy of AI. By contrast, democracy needs to be oriented towards mass politics and collective actors rather than reproducing the narrow conception of democracy and deliberation upon which minipublics are built. 

Bio:  

Alvaro Oleart is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science and the Institute for European Studies of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His research focuses on the relationship between political conflict and democracy through a decolonial lens in the context of the European Union by analysing the discourse in the European public spheres, citizen participation processes, political parties, the media, civil society and transnational social movements from both an empirical and normative perspective. He is the author of the books “Framing TTIP in the European Public Spheres: Towards an Empowering Dissensus for EU Integration” (Palgrave, 2021) and “Democracy Without Politics in EU Citizen Participation: From European Demoi to Decolonial Multitude” (Palgrave, 2023).