Alvaro Oleart on the instrumentalisation of EU participation processes & limits of AI for democracy
Alvaro Oleart is an academic researcher based in Brussels at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His work focuses on social movements, EU participatory practices, democratic innovation, and the political economy of technology. In this conversation, he offers a critical perspective on citizen assemblies, arguing that they can depoliticize democracy when they bypass collective actors such as trade unions, political parties, civil society organizations, and social movements. We also discuss Big Tech, AI, the industry of participation, technology in deliberation, the agentic state, and why democratic innovation should focus more on collective power than on small groups of selected individuals.
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Transcript
Welcome to another episode of the democracy innovative podcast, and our guest of today is Alvaro Polianet. Thank you, Alvaro, for your time. Thanks, Alessandro, for the invitation. Would you like to tell us something about you, your academic background, or also your personal background?
Yeah. So I am an academic researcher based, in Brussels at the Universite Libre del Ducel, and I have worked, a lot on social movements. I did my PhD on the TTIP contestation and debates, the EU US trade agreement that was negotiated about ten years ago by the EU with The US. So I was very much interested in the relation between conflict and democracy. And more recently I worked a lot on, the participatory practices of, the EU more concretely looking at European citizens initiative, the conference in the future of Europe or the European citizen panels.
Okay. And, what have you discovered like, while you are on these topics?
Yeah. Well, I mean, I am quite, maybe disappointed is not the right question because maybe I was not necessarily expecting a lot from the EU in regards to participation, but it remains quite, shocking the citizen washing practices that the EU mobilizes in regards to participation. So how there is a very strategic, deployment of, so called democratic innovations to basically, whitewash the policies that are mostly decided beforehand. And in this kind of process, there's actually no not really much possibility of shaping the underlying philosophy with which these processes and policies are built.
But where do you identify, like, the main issue? Like, in the because I can see the fact that, just, few people are involved in citizen assemblies or maybe also the fact that, the commitment. So the output of a citizen assembly not always become, let's say, the input of a policy.
So I think that, there's a problem with the process not only with the output. I know that there's a lot of colleagues that have been making the argument about how, for example, since this need to be sort of, like the output needs to be binding. Right? And if the outcome is binding then this will improve the democratic legitimacy of these processes. I am really not convinced about this because the process itself and the underlying philosophy with sit with which citizen assemblies are conceived, I think is problematic because it's in most of the cases beginning from a very depoliticized, conception of democracy that, sidelines the actors that I think are central to any democratic process which are collective actors. Right? Trade unions, mass political parties, and mass politics more generally. And I think in most of these citizen assemblies and I have studied primarily the ones taking place at the European level so I know that the the citizen's assembly is taking place at the national level. Sometimes there are some specificities that make them a little bit more legitimate. Like, I'm thinking, for example, about the French convention citizen convention on climate that actually triggered quite a lot of public debates, and I thought that was very interesting. So to me, the assembly itself was was good insofar. It was able to have an impact in public debates. But in most of the cases, the citizen assemblies go completely under the radar of, public debates and, are simply used by institutions to legitimize their positions, which I find very deeply problematic.
And so how can be this, problem fixed? Because you mentioned that the process is the is the problem. So connecting the citizen assembly maybe to some, social movement, you mentioned. I don't know. Maybe political parties, maybe.
Yeah. I am not particularly favorable to the idea of citizen assembly, so I am not sure that the fix is how to connect better citizen assemblies to social movements. I think to begin as thinking that citizen assemblies are the solution is part of the problem. And I think, okay, what are the real or the what are the kind of causes that, that we have in which, you know, we see that democracy is at risk or that, we we have democratic regression. What are the causes? Is the cause that, there are no citizen assemblies or that there are no more citizen assemblies? I am not really convinced about that. Is the cause more related to, for instance, the political infrastructure of political parties, of trade unions. I think that is where I start, seeing a little bit some of the some therefore and of course the kind of structural racism, structural sexism that operates and of course the role of private kind of corporations, that are clearly playing an important role in democratic regression. Are citizen assemblies able to kind of address any of those things? I am really not convinced. And, actually, the argument that I have been making is that actually the sit in assemblies have the potential to make it worse, especially on the first point because, a lot of sit in assemblies are based on this sort of disintermediation. So, basically, it's an attempt where institutions often relied on intermediary bodies to connect with citizens. Right? So, you know, there was not a direct relation between citizens and public institutions, but there were many intermediary bodies, trade unions, mass political parties, civil society organizations that play this intermediary role. Right? And with, these citizen assemblies, there's an attempt to kind of construct a more direct relation between public authorities and citizens and basically sidelining all these, mediators and say, you know, we don't need them. They don't represent. Freedomists don't represent, people. Civil society does not represent people. Let's just construct a direct relation and let's use sortition as a way to basically get what they call descriptive representation of which I think is deeply problematic among other things for this, for this reason. And in doing so, it actually weakens the legitimacy of these intermediary actors that are, not suddenly not invited. They're just not even considered to be part of the discussions. In some ways, I think citizen assemblies may be more part of the problem than of the solution. So that's a little bit the the the kind of starting point from which I I kind of see them.
And and you see some, other, like, participatory practice that can be used? Like, I'm thinking, technology can be used in politics. And, and also, like, it's So what? We mean with, citizen assembly, I'm thinking. Because if it is a citizen assembly organized by the AU and, there are, I don't know, just 100 people randomly extracted, then, of course, it's not very significant significant. Okay. So, the output truth. I I think which kind of practice can be used in relation to technology and politics to understand what citizens want?
So there are two things in your question. The first one is what about the practices? But, of course, when I think about democracy, democracy is not just kind of a set of best practices. Right? It's also the possibility to contest the foundations of society. And to me then, it is not just about sort of what are the best practices, but, what's what's the end game? What kind of society do we want? And this type of debates, of course, there are some forums that are better suited to have these debates, but I think it is important to have these debates and not to have them as kind of individuals like me as Alvaro, you as Alessandro, but to have them through collective actors. We as workers in a trade union, we as people that share particular ideology and so on. So that's the the starting point to me is the importance of collective actors in, challenging what we think our society how our society should be organized. Right? Because often the best practices is a way of kind of narrowing a lot of the discussion. Right? It's like, okay. You know? Let's have a, you know, citizen assembly about, like, for example, the European Union organized the commission on food waste. Let's, you know, have some very concrete recommendations about food waste. Yeah. But if you do that, you're taking away you're depoliticizing the process by taking away the possibility of asking some fundamental kind of questions and basically, you end up with, okay, you know, how best to, you know, recycle as individuals and how best not to, you know, you know, let this is literally a suggestion from by someone that was part of, of the expert group, of the European Commission on on the citizen panel on food waste that basically recommended to go to the shopping store with shopping list because if you have a shopping list then you know you don't buy more than you need. Therefore it's this very individual perspective. So the the first part is about kind of we need more collective actors. I I can already tell you I don't have a very concrete institutional proposal about how best to kind of organize participation. And then the second, dimension of your question was about technology. And I I find it this really interesting and this, way we have also I have also worked with, with some colleagues on this. So notably with, Pell Petit, I we wrote a paper on, the citizen washing of EU tech policies by the EU in which we looked at the panels that the EU organized in regards to technology. So, basically, technology as an object of deliberation and then I worked on another paper with, Nicholas Palomo on, basically how technology is increasingly seen as a way to improve deliberation. So technology as as an instrument that might help to get deliberation. Right? And in this context, I find problematic to see first technology as necessarily a positive kind of solution to something. It's like, well, okay. We first have to diagnose what the problem is in order to then find a solution. When technology is used as a as a means to improve deliberation, we don't or, you know, the the the the organizations that are mobilizing kind of this logic, I think, have a very technocratic understanding of deliberation. You know? Because they say, okay. You know? You know, AI can help us to, you know, take notes and, you know, make, you know, moderation easier and things like that. Yep. You know, the problem is not just the technocratic one of, you know, solve solving some kind of things that organizers deal with, but there's a more fundamental problem. And then there's a deeper question about technology, which is, okay, who is controlling technology? Because technology is not just a neutral kind of tool, but, has a philosophy embedded. And here is where, you know, I think the role of big tech companies is very relevant because they are increasingly being precisely part of the problem. Right? And we see the role of tech oligarchs that are having an increasingly important role in democratic regression, supporting far right parties everywhere, and, shaping a lot of the of the conversations. So that's why I I like to see as well technology both as a object of deliberation, but also as a means to to improve deliberation. And when looking at that, we really need to look at the underlying kind of political economy of technology and the political economy of society more broadly and question it.
But I think maybe the problem can be like the, the fact that the citizen assembly are not organized by the citizens because, I'm thinking if, I don't know, like, in a town, citizen could organize a citizen assembly by themselves, choosing the topic and so on or, like, also, I don't know, in different cities to propose, like, something, to change the law, then maybe it could be different.
I mean, I am not convinced either about the possibility of citizens organizing their own, but I I do think that, as you're already hinting at, there is an important question in analyzing who is organizing citizen assemblies because we are also seeing a massive increase of the industry of participation. So there is increasingly basically private companies that are whose job is to organize citizen assemblies. So, you know, even even many of them have this kind of rhetoric and discourse about, you know, improving democracy and so on. Ultimately, they are also private consultancies and companies that, you know, their their products the products they sell are citizen assemblies. This is what's happening. And we cannot disentangle this from also the relation they have to, for example, in the case of technology, with some private companies and private tech companies more concretely because it's not by chance that there's a lot of tech companies that they are increasingly interested in citizen participation precisely because they see their objects of, you know, they are blamed of the for lack of democracy and so on. Obviously, that that's obviously, accurate. But we see, for example, in in The US, they stand for deliberative democracy lab that is, I think, or was headed by James Tyskin, a well known academic in the field of deliberative democracy is increasingly making projects with Meta. Right? On I remember one on AI agents, and that I think was last year. Or there are also some other colleagues that have cooperated with OpenAI. I am thinking here of, Helen Landemore that I think was, part of the grants program of OpenAI, I think, in 2023 or so on. So, you know, there's a very close entanglement between some of the organizers of some of these citizen assemblies with some of the companies that are providing some of the infrastructure of the tech infrastructure. Right? So it's not by chance, for instance, in in the paper we wrote with Nicholas, we also looked at the Habermas machine that was created by Google DeepMind. And, of course, they think that, AI can be super helpful to find and create consensus across, different groups. Right? So I think it is important to look precisely at okay. You know? These processes are not just neutral processes. They are led by some very specific groups and interest. And while I'm not discarding the idea that deliberation is important, like, okay. Who is organizing this deliberation, and, who is deciding how this is organized? So yeah.
Well, I mean, a lot of things and, your big text are in some way an issue. And, I'm also thinking that, maybe to do something, that can be done step by step. So now we are are experimenting and using technologies from big techs Tech maybe in the future. I don't know. Some open source models can be used. But also, I'm thinking regarding what we were saying before, like, if we really need technology in politics because, actually, I also think that we do not need it. I mean, also, without technology, there are a lot of improvement that we could do in politics. Then what I'm thinking is that, technology may be called the law. Let's say, a direct democracy without technology will not be possible. Or maybe yes. I don't know. What do you think?
Yeah. So I'm not against technology. I think that it needs to for me to be clear about what sort of technology we're using and what the purpose of that technology is. And I think there is a risk in further normalizing. So I think already, unfortunately, you know, all these different AI applications have been largely normalized across society in multiple ways, and I find that deeply troubling for many reasons like, the labor exploitation that is required for AI to be possible mostly with labor in the global South, the environmental costs of this, the increasing amounts of data centers being built everywhere. So I think that that is very troubling that we even in the field of democracy, I mean, I remember there was, like, for example, citizen assembly, I think, was in Finland, on energy where they were using AI. Like, let let let's do a citizen assembly on energy efficiency and, at the same time, let's use AI to, you know, help deliberation. It's like I mean, even in that sort of context, the the the there's, I think, little awareness of the dangers of it. Now that said, I think in technology, it is important to, you know, both communicate and organize. So I think there is a point in having technology, and I would not make an argument that we should just get rid of all technology, but we should democratize it. And this does not mean democratizing AI to just, to make it wrong by the state, but make, technology first publicly controlled or public democratically controlled. So far it's just private companies developing whatever they want and second one we would have to see what sort of applications we want to use. I mean with the chat g p t or things like that no one there's no democratic legitimacy to simply throwing all these tools to society. And I mean, no one no one has been asked whether ChargeGPT was a good idea to begin with. Right? They just launched it there and then suddenly millions of people started using it and now it's very difficult to roll back. Right? Because once you roll something in, it's very difficult to roll back but rolling it in in the first place is also a political decision. Right? A political decision that has been taken by a private company. So I think we would have to see what sort of technologies and means we need in a democratic society. And that's why I would I advocate for kind of strong, collective actors that are able precisely to take into account the various risks that exist when normalizing or integrating new types of technology.
Also controlling the technology, I think, is something very hard. Unfortunately, also because there is no way to know what is running on the server. Like, I'm thinking also about open source software. You can check maybe the GitHub repo. You can check the the code, but then you don't know if the code on the server is modified or not. And so I'm a little bit skeptical sometimes about the regulation that cannot be made. I'm not against regulation. It's, it's something just in relation to technology that sometimes is not because sometimes, you know, you say, okay. We regulated then the to get active, but then it it doesn't mean that, something
is is happening in the black box. I guess the the question here is not so much about regulation. Also, there is a dimension of it, but about, for example, the introduction of, some of this new technology. So, you know, say that, you know, now we have AI tools. Right? Like, you know, chat bots and things like that that basically are able to do almost anything. So it's like general purpose. This, I think, creates a very important problem because because they are general purpose, these companies say, well, you know, in order to develop this general purpose technology, we need as much data as we can because without as much data, which by the way, there are a lot of problems with the ways in which they took the data to train their AI models to begin with. But that's, yeah, a different, question. But okay. If you were to say, oh, no. But, you know, at the same time, AI is very important because, you know, that's how we are able to, like, cure cancer or identify cancer as well. It's like, okay. You know, maybe we could think of ways to okay. We want to a a technology that is targeted and specific to, cure cancer or to identify cancer. Well, okay. Maybe that's great. And then we only need data that is specific to that purpose. And this is the exact opposite to what is happening now that we have AI models that are, for example, all encompassing. They just take all the data that that there is in order to be able to try to do sort of almost everything. And I think this this creates very a very big tension that's yeah. I I think instead of having, like, a view level that you have the AI act where it which is like a risk based approach, but maybe it would be kind of like, the opposite logic of saying, okay. You know? Do you want an AI application? Show me what the purpose is, and then maybe, you know, we can develop and maybe it should be publicly to develop. And in the case of deliberation, that is this is the case. You know, they are some actors are just taking AI because it saves them a little bit of time and I think are making deliberation even worse, to be honest, in addition of this logic of, you know, they are trying to okay. Can we really use the master's tools to dismantle the master house to, like, quote all the lord? Like, can we use the very same technology that is developed by those actors that are responsible for democratic regression in order to counter democratic regression? I'm not sure you can be both the problem and the solution at the same time.
A lot of, let's say, open questions. I mean, a lot of issues and I think you so you said you mentioned you said that, I is also a political tool, something like that. I and so it should be and, basically, a product company decided to release a tool to the people. I mean, customers and also people that, are giving away the data because then they're retraining the models. And, and so if the state has to actually authorize or deny, a new model is released, because right now it's not working in this way. So this is what you're suggesting so that there is, let's say, a more collective decision or, like, is the state that decide, okay, this technology is good for society
or not good for society. Right? Yes. Well, at least there should be some, you know, collective discussions about these things. And, of course, there are also problematic uses of AI by the state, you know, and, you know, it's clear that, you know, the states are not, innocent in a lot of these, things. I mean, we see how, you know, increasingly states are making deals with companies like Palantir or, you know, you know, also with OpenAI or or anthropic and so on. So, yeah, states are not innocent and they are not just the the the only, they are not just the solution. Right? But precisely, I think that we need some democratic legitimacy and collective decision making to decide about these technologies in the first place. I don't have a very concrete kind of recommendation about the process of how that should work, and I don't would not want to get entangled in very democratic kind of, logics, but I think that's definitely the case. And a lot of actors within the deliberative democracy community on the grounds of, oh, you know, we need to scale democratic innovation. You know? On those grounds, they are very, yeah, problematically just normalizing these types of technologies without, I think, necessary reflection about the embedded philosophy in this in these technologies.
K. Because I I I do about the fact, about the collective discussion so that, we understand if something is positive or negative for society. But then, I wonder how to make it happen, let's say, without technology. Because I see maybe in this, I have some faith. I don't know. Technically, technology could be helpful to actually do what you are suggesting because, it it it is easier sometimes to, I don't know if we are thousand and thousand of people, to vote on a issue and decide if we want something or we do not want something else.
No. Yeah. I I agree. I mean, there's there's some excellent work by, colleagues like, Rafael Groman who has worked, for example, on cooperatives, like organizations that use technology and that develop technology as cooperatives. So I do think that technology is some potential, and I don't want to situate myself as necessarily anti technology. But I am certainly anti certain types of technology that are entrenching certain political social relations that I find deeply problematic. So I think it's I mean, technology can be a source to organizing and so on, but we can also, you know, I think that look at social media. I mean, social media started 2010, 2011, Occupy, Arab Spring, Indignados Movement, and Twitter was a very common space for this kind of, logics. Right? And and develop narratives that counter governments and so on. But what I think or Facebook. Very few people or some people, but not a lot, maybe did not analyze as well the political economy that was operating at the time. Like, while these spaces were being used for organizing and activism, these companies were extracting all the data that was later used to basically first to target ads because that's how they make money and that's how I expect a AI to make money. They would just input ads into ChargeGPT, you know, so you will be doing something and they will just because they know everything you like. So if you all sound like football, you will get football ads. And, so technology is necessary, and these spaces are necessary. I think a space like, you know, like, what used to be Twitter is helpful. The question is, okay. You know? Who is in control of this? Like, what is the structure of these processes? And I have little hope that these spaces, if controlled by a political economy that is dominated by a few corporations, can ultimately I mean, they can just switch it off. They can shadow ban people. So we need to think as well of alternatives.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely, I think that, big techs, big techs represent a problem. Also, like, in Italy, a couple of days ago in our municipality, there was a mayor that, basically put an AI agent as part of the, as parts of I'm interested in the experiment. At the same time, I wonder if they use some technology, let's say, open source technology hosted inside the municipality or if they are using, I don't know, or a cloud because that means, okay, one, let's say, politician in Italy that is using OpenAI is not a problem. But then let's say that there is one or more in every Italian municipality and then maybe inside the parliament, then as you can say, they can switch it off. And
Yeah. I mean, I think they are these tech companies are increasingly making us dependent on them. I mean, now you can look at, for example, universities. Most of them have agreements with Microsoft. Right? I mean, it's not just for AI. It's, like, for Outlook, like emails and words and stuff like that. Right? And now they just integrated Copilot within it. And what is happening is that increasingly more sectors of society are integrating these technologies in their day to day. Initially, I would imagine for not a lot of money, but the moment that they become very dependent, then suddenly they can just raise the prices as much as they want because it would be very difficult, to move away from them because, you know, you just become dependent. You you just integrated in your daily work. Like, if I would start now writing with ChargeGPT, what would happen is that in two years' time, I would just not know how to write. So it would be very difficult, you know. And, like, this is happening a little bit in in in a lot of sectors. So this gains them it gains these companies a lot of leverage towards public authorities, towards other companies, and towards citizens in general. So that's why I think, yeah, keeping an eye and and especially when we think of democracy and how to improve deliberation and so on, we also keep in mind as well the infrastructure upon which the deliberation devices are built.
Absolutely. I and also in relation to this, I mean that, university are using Google and Microsoft. I remember then, I was at the Universita Satale, Chile di Milano, and I think it was, during COVID times that, or just after that they switched from, let's say, self hosted email from. So they were hosted inside the university or, like, something like that, to and it passed to Microsoft. And I actually interviewed the, let's say, the leader of the technical department, and, he explained me very well how before the role, like, I don't know, five people that were managing the email accounts. And so it was way cheaper to give it Microsoft. But then, of course, you're also giving the dot, and in the long term, I think, is not cheaper.
Yes. Because And then
Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. And then another thing is that, if the infrastructure of the university run, let's say, on Microsoft Teams, then I wonder what is then the university because then Microsoft can will just add the, I don't know, some classes there, and and then Microsoft became the university.
Well, there's increasingly involvement of Google and Microsoft in educational processes, like, you know, in schools and universities and so on. So yeah, and indeed what what you're saying is is really accurate in the sense that there is a cost to it that is not just economic but it's also a democratic one and the more spaces that rely on on these companies well the more leverage these companies will have and the more power they will gain in society. So yeah and that's why I'm quite critical of the the idea that technology can be a solution for a lot of democratic deliberation. Because it's a very techno solution is kind of logic where you think that technology is the is the solution, but then you identify the problem as in in sort of very small kind of ways. It's like, you know, looking at the trees instead of looking at the forest. And then, okay. You know, I have this small thing with the moderator. Maybe, you know, if I use, technology, then I can I can sort it out, but we lose track of the of the forest and the more systemic kind of, problems that, that may arise from it?
I don't know if you are seeing, like, the agentic state initiative. Okay. I will describe briefly the concept, that is, citizens now are used to services that are very fast and efficient. So let's say I order something on Amazon, arrives in some hours, or I do something on Google and, it's free and, they provide it in a, let's say, efficient world while the state, is, slower, usually. Right? Way, way, way is slow. And so, basically, the concept is if the state doesn't become efficient and fast as private companies are, when people will just use private companies and the state will not exist anymore. This is more or less what I understood.
Yeah. But this is so scary. I mean, because all this, especially the agentic kind of AI logics, it's a very dehumanizing process because we are increasingly where I mean, with the emergence of the iPhones and smartphones and so on, we have already, you know, you go, I don't know, in public transport and most of the people is with their phone. Right? But now this is just yet a new step in this kind of dehumanization and individualization logic where, you know, you're just, like, having a relation to other people through the technology. Instead of I mean, here, of course, it's it's paradoxical that we're doing this through Google Meet, but, you know, in some ways, okay, you know, you can say, okay. This at least we are having a direct conversation. You're not an AI agent. I am not either. Right? But what is increasingly happening is that this this is taking place. So, you know, you will stay I mean, it's already the case, but it will be multiplied by a lot. You go to a to a shopping in the store, and you don't even speak to the cashier because, you know, either it will be straight, like, inputted or you have this kind of self checkout. Right? Like, where you're not even talking to anyone. And this is the same logic with the state, you know, like, okay, you know, you don't go to talk to people in the union to say, okay. What about this unemployment documents or so on? You know? You you will just face, an agentic AI, and this is happening across kind of dimensions. Like, even I I saw that there are, like, some romantic AI's like AI's that do therapy. So this is increasing, our individualization and dehumanization by, making us dependent on the technology that is at the same time separating us from other people and other humans. And if for me technology is helpful is precisely as a way to connect to other people. What is here it's used to do precisely the opposite is to is being used to disconnect people from other people And, increasingly, we think of us as unique individuals, not as part of bigger groups of as workers, as parts of a bigger community.
Yeah. I I think also, like, without technology, we will not be able to talk, and, probably, we would have talked with someone near us. And so is disconnecting, but also, I think, connecting on the on the longer
Yeah. But but here's where you can see, okay, what sort of technology is contributing to connect people and what sort of technology is contributing to disconnect people. And I think, you know, to me, it is very clear that a lot of these AI chat bots are I mean, to me, they should be banned because they are precisely really used to disconnect people, to make us, you know, enter into much more individual ways of thinking about the world. Whereas there are other technologies, you know, like the one that we're using to talk to each other, that can be helpful. And there there is a point in having video conferences and having phones to connect. I mean, of course, that that is can be helpful, but that's why we we should make an analysis. Okay. What technologies? You know? What are what is the philosophy embedded with some technologies and how can we promote the users of one and restrict the ones that are contributing to make our society more individualistic and and and less connected.
And, if we think about the future, let's say the nine, ten, twenty years, how do we imagine society if it goes in the way it is going now? And, and then also I how it could be society if it goes in a different way? So something more like, something that you wish maybe.
Mhmm. Yeah. Look. I don't have a very, yeah, clear imaginary of how it should look like, but I do think that a key element in, in building a more democratic future is to try to understand the connections that exist between different but related struggles. And by this I mean, okay, you know, the the question of technology which I think is central to a lot of the questions about democracy needs to be connected to, for example, anti colonial movements like we're seeing in Palestine where Israel is using technology in the violence that they are exerting, but it's also used for example in pursuing sexist violence, right, through a lot of, you know, social media, vitality, reproducing, kind of stereotypes, and so on. It's also clearly used for discrimination and racism. We see that, for example, technology and is being used to discriminate against migrants from executing a lot of, like, like, drones and other type of technology to basically make it as difficult as possible for migrants to enter the EU in the first place and so on. So that's why we need to, you know, see trace the connections. And only by tracing these connections, I think we can build a better future together. So I I I'm hesitating to give you, like, a very, you know, okay. What's me as Alvaro, you know, think of the future, but I'm thinking of the ways in which we can collectively imagine a more democratic future. And I think this begins by acknowledging the structural, the structural inequalities and injustices that exist in our society and doing something about it together. And I don't know for example in terms of technology it is interesting that some content moderators that were working for meta not directly but through a contractor in Kenya suits meta because of like unfair labor conditions and this triggered as well that they unionized together with other content moderators, most of which are based in the global South. Right? Like Madagascar or Philippines or Venezuela. So they created a global union of content moderators. I don't know how far it will go, but I think it's a it's a good kind of starting point to think as well about the kind of workers rights dimension. So also the environmental struggles, you know, and so my kind of pledge would be not so much about a very concrete type of future but at least about how to think about imagining about the future. And if we want to think about that, we need to think about political economy. We need to think about the miners that are extracting the lithium in Bolivia, Chile, and Venezuela. We need to think about the content moderators. We need to think about oppressed peoples, mostly in the global South, etcetera, etcetera. And only by, you know, seeing and tracing all these different communities that are affected among other things by technology, we will be able to imagine and deliver a better future, a more democratic one.
Yeah. Absolutely. Because this all those, it's feasible to the citizens, to the user that use the platform. So just use Facebook and they seems nice, then we are not aware of all the people that maybe have to see horrible videos and check it or approve it or deny it. So, I don't know because, I think that there is a maybe a sort of tension. As as I said, we do not need technology. The balance of political innovation, there are a lot of also, let's say that the technology do not exist. I mean, the technology that we know now that we are used to use. We could do a lot for everything you mentioned. Inter we we could, try to make the world a better place, to make, it in a way that people do not suffer or die or are exploited. And, actually, yeah, as I said, maybe I have a little bit of fruit, because, you know, if I if I'm not sure, it means that I am faithful. And so it's also maybe a sort of very, similar to religion has also ideologies could be. That maybe technology could help, in coordinating maybe in term of coordination. I think
No. I agree. I think it can help in terms of coordination. It needs to be clear, I think, that, technology itself is not the solution to almost anything. Right? It can be a means or it can help to coordinate, but that's why I am advocating for a kind of targeted usage of technology and targeted thinking of technology. If I think there's a problem with the this kind of general purpose logic with which technology operates, you know, let's just use technology for everything, you know. I think there are some users that can be helpful for democracy, and I think we should foster them. But I think technology by itself will not be the solution to almost anything.
Absolutely. So it could be, I mean, not a not the solution. I wonder, like, you mentioned self check-in supermarket. Do we see them as something, let's say, positive because so a human doesn't have to stay there doing something that now a machine can do? Or do you see it as negative because it, let's say, steal the job, to a person?
I mean, I guess it depends. I don't have a direct answer on that specific kind of example. What I I notice is the kind of bigger trends of individualizing society by preventing or making it more difficult to make connections between different people. I think there there can be problems with with subjects but not just because of that. I mean, there's here and I don't want to, yeah, insist too much but I think it's it's a reality. We also have to look at also the political economy of most shopping stores, the and the, you know, so the the problem is not so much whether I think this is, you know, there are cashiers or they are not cashier. The problem is, okay, it's again, who is controlling, you know, is this accountable? This, for example, I I find very interesting and I haven't looked too much into it but I would like to. Zoran Mandani, the mayor of New York, I think promised and I think he delivered creating, publicly owned, shopping store And I I found that really interesting and and I think there might be some interesting solutions. And beginning from that, maybe you and you can have, you know, interesting conversations around, okay, should we have cashiers? If so, in what role and so on and so forth. So I think this is a a much bigger conversation that this is not just, okay, you know, the some machines are are replacing humans because it's not entirely true. What is happening is that other humans are replacing humans. So for example, you might have, you know, less cashiers, but you know what you have more? You have more people, in Madagascar, for example, doing video surveillance, like, at a distance, you know? So you may have less, you know, workers there, but you have more so, you know, it's it's a complex kind of thing that I think the only way to solve it is not just by saying, okay. I have this very specific solution, but think, okay. First, what is the political economy? You know? Who is controlling? And have collective discussions about how should we organize it otherwise. And so it should not be up to me to decide, okay. You know? It's better to self checkout or not, but more, okay. You know, what's you know, how do we work to organize these stores and, and not just leave it up to Carrefour to decide whether, you know, they they would have self checkouts because it just saves them money.
I absolutely agree about, having, let's say, collective discussion. This will be very important. And I think that so in some way, I'm also skeptical. As I said, regarding two small citizen assembly that are done, I don't know, one time, and, the topic is decided by someone that maybe has some interest. And so but I wonder because, I see that, a lot of people do not participate in politics, in their political life. Also, if there are something in their small town that doesn't work, they could, let's say, send an email to the mayor. They could, let's say, organize a very small movement of 20 people, but they can do it. I mean, draft movement. There are people that send emails, but I will say that maybe they are just a small minority. I wonder if this, maybe, let's say, citizen assembly, but then it depends what we mean with citizen assembly. Or, like, other things could be maybe a sort of, game, a sort of exercise to actually understand how people could have power.
I don't know. Yeah. I mean, my suggestion would be to not think so much of citizens, individuals that, they should be sending emails to the mayor. But how can we democratize collective actors? How can we democratize trade unions? How can we democratize political parties so that more people are part of them? And instead of, you know, me as an individual sending a letter to the mayor that I am part of the union and then there's an issue with something and then I can raise it to the union and the union or, you know, a political party or a civil society or, you know, an activist social movement group would be the one that would be sort of having this more direct relation with the public authorities because I think it's it's not just about the relation of individuals to public authorities but more the relation of collective actors to public authorities that I think matters crucially for democracy. Of course, there there there are important individual rights that have to be respected, but I think that ultimately when we have had advances in democracy is because people organize collectively. It's because people, you know, how how did women, you know, get the right to vote because women organized. How did workers rights, get, you know, forty hours a week, because they organized. And they organized protests and they organized demonstrations. And if we do not organize collectively and raise these things in in this way, it will be very easy for states to sort of do divide and conquer. And you just you should just think about yourself as an individual instead of, you know, thinking of ourselves as part of bigger groups and operate politically as such.
But it's hard to do it as a group.
So that's why we know rather than thinking about citizen assemblies, I would rather advocate, okay, how can we think of democratizing collective actors? You know? Why instead of, you know, just organizing a citizen assembly about food waste like the commission did for AI or whatever, why are we not, you know, pushing for having bigger unions with more members but that they are also more democratic? Because it's true that there are some undemocratic tendencies in most, unions or or political parties. So, you know, they are, of course, not absent of some authoritarian dynamics, but I see more hope in trying to democratize them and mobilizing and organizing with people that are like minded, to to do that rather than, you know, just to me, what Christina Lafon says in that sense is correct in the sense that a lot of citizen assemblies are a shortcut. It's like, okay. You know, it's very difficult to organize and so on. Let's just do a citizen assembly and then, hey. We have the democratic legitimacy. But that's a shortcut that is, in my view, actually quite undemocratic.
And do you have a message, to the people that are working in the field of democratic innovation? Maybe also on citizen assessment maybe on different things, regarding democratic innovation. And, yeah, if you have a message, to them for for them.
Yeah. I mean, my main message is, yeah, let's focus on collective actors. Let's focus on those actors that have historically been able to make democracy better, and we have not done that quietly. We have done that by making noise, by organizing, by going to protests, and by building strong collective movements that have been able to represent white constituencies rather than focusing uniquely on a small group of individuals. So that is sort of my plea and and, yeah, let let's make the connections that exist and try to to connect those struggles that might be different because I do not have the same struggles as some migrant woman might have. But, nonetheless, my struggles are also connected to people that are, struggling in in different ways, and, and we should find ways of and spaces to discuss those struggles and act politically together as much as it is possible.
Thank you, Alvaro. And, I don't know if you'd like to add, anything else.
No. I think it's I I don't not sure I have anything more to to say, but, yeah. Thanks a lot, Alessandro. It was, really a pleasure to to have this discussion.
Too. Also for me.
