Welcome on another episode of Democracy Innovator podcast, and our guests of today are Marco Capat and Francesco Vecchi. And, thank you for your

you're working on a humans. Right? What is a Yes. A movement?

Yeah. Let, let me add a couple of things. I do think that what Marco said is really true. The point is that Humas was also born to fill in the gaps of a few dissatisfactions. We believe as citizens in general, but especially now we started from the Italian use case. And the dissatisfaction were not only the scope of the participation, meaning, you know, national versus international, but also the satisfaction that a lot of, widespread, a lot of campaigns, a lot of ideas that would be widespread 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 consequences that will be against that. And since party politics is about gaining consensus and gaining, let's say, quantitative consensus, no one can, can really afford losing that kind of, political support. Therefore, we do believe that there are some topics that, should be discussed outside, or at least that whose discussion should be complemented outside of a usual representative democracy. This is the case again for, transversal political, initiatives.

And now you're both working on a campaign called Civic AI. Right?

What is the Civic AI?

Well, that it this is a very tough question. Maybe I can step in here. The problem in defining Civic Artificial Intelligence is that we are, first of all, speaking of, 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 multilayered. It starts from the infrastructure, then it gets to the layer of how data are collect, stored, gather, and used. And then there is the, then there is the level of the algorithm, then there is the level of the software, and then there is the level of the interface with users and the effects that, artificial intelligence might have on specific users and citizens thus far. It's not only the technology, 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, regulating AI. Of course, we completely different approaches, compared to the European Union's one. But then another problem is also that, that can, I can say the dissemination of this technology into the, contemporary public sphere and especially the digital sphere is constantly changing because we are also getting used to the different applications? So, is CivicAI a fight against the disinformation? Generative AI led disinformation? Is CivicAI, I cannot say, the campaign for, ensuring that each specific layer that I mentioned earlier, complies with European values and democratic values. Easy to campaign for increasing and enhancing civic participation online also through the support of CVKI chatbots or retro assistance or platforms. I mean, the point is that CVKI is a bit of everything. Maybe I'll leave the floor to Mark 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, trying to do what we, what we plan to do in the coming, weeks and months. Yes. Well, I will start from the consideration

Yes. If I may add something on this, if I thank you, Marco, for mentioning, you know, the need for creating, I can say, an ecosystem, digital ecosystem. This is exactly, one of the most important things to clarify when speaking of CVKI. What we do have in mind is trying to outline a European digital public sphere. 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 we share. They're influencing the way, we interact with the public, organizations or public institutions. They are influencing also our daily lives. We must ensure that everything in our you know, in in their in this mixed reality, in this hybrid reality that we are living through, you know, which is mixing, I cannot say physical assets and digital assets. We must ensure that this also exists at the same. 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, how can I say, can submit the petition to the European Parliament? And this was exactly what Marco did supported by some experts, especially from Italy, but not only from Italy. The, what happened to the petition was that the petition was first examined by the, committee of the European Parliament dedicated to petitions. And then we were, asked to present it, in April 2025, in front of the on the committee. In that case, Marco asked me to go simply because I'm losing Brussels. And, and after, in that case, we gather the support of all representatives from all mem or all groups of the parliament, for our initiative. In that I must admit that in that case, we did not only, present again the petition was already existing, and you can still find in our website. But what we tried to outline is exactly this, the pan European digital public sphere. And this public sphere was composed of four main strengths. The first one is a civic assistance. So we you know, in our effort to explain what we mean with Civic AI, the first, visualization that we got was a sort of chatbot of Vitra system 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, insights and feedback on how they can actively participate in the European democracy. There are plenty of things that citizens can do. For example, provide feedback to open consultations of the European Commission. This is gonna be important to support later on. They can on the heavier side portal, they can, for instance, participate in the citizen engagement forum. Sometimes there are, participatory and deliberative initiatives such as, was, the conference on the future of Europe. But in most cases, people simply don't know. And what we have to, what we have to accept, when we do politics is that citizens are getting used not even, at having, you know, services delivered as a softwares or as a as platforms, but they're getting used of having services delivered through virtual assistants and chatbots. This is the main trend we see. So we would like that public services, not only as the public the services, 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 citizen friendly way. Why am I mentioning all of this? Because, this was just, in fact, the first strand that there are other, strand. 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, participate that you can join depending, of course, on your residency rights, your nationality rights, or citizenship rights, and and so on and so forth. And, third, there was the the liberation engine. So creating a sort of tool that would help the public deliberation to all the technology including AI but to 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. There is what we call the democracy data commons. So the concept of data commons, and I know that Marco probably would like to add something on that as well, but the the concept of data commons is creating this 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 by the European data, protection supervisor. But this data, this data space will 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, particip digital democracy tools, but sometimes they are either, how 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, like I say, pan European 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 steps. So probably, I'd like to spend a couple of words on data commerce because he recently had an idea also on this.

I like the question, and I'm thinking about all the interesting things that you mentioned mentioned early. 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, as Francesca said, like, often, the citizen doesn't know what he can actually do. And and I was wondering, like, this, dissatisfaction that citizen has. So we have seen also how people maybe, I mean, they still vote. There there are election, but we cannot say that representative democracy is at, the highest, is not the highest moment for representative democracy. And, I totally agree about, the possibilities that we have now using technology, to make, politics more accessible for citizens. Because as you said, like, Francesco, we've had chatbot. Maybe it's easier to, to tell to tell to a citizen what he can do or what are the possibilities. And, I'm thinking also about the the digital ecosystem. That is also something very important, because probably, I can imagine that several platforms are needed, several expertises. And, and, yeah, I totally also agree about how to that, it it is necessary to break the circle of, of technology used for control or for commercial reasons. And, actually, it was, yesterday, I was, at the table with some, PhD students that that are studying these kind of things. And, we were also thinking about what is the CVKI, because I asked them, the question. And, it is actually not an easy, thing to, it it's not actually easy. But, yeah, I I think maybe do some examples

Yes. Again, let me let me take a step back to move a step forward. So whenever we speak about CivicAI, sometimes people get the impression that we do want the European Union or whatever, a public actuary in the regard to develop a platform or develop a chatbot and put it in the hands of the citizens. I mean, developing this kind of tool is extremely expensive, and not always the 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 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 EIDAS 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 or, trust service providers for digital identity. That happened, I mean, I don't remember if five, ten years ago, the first version, and then recently, the second version was, 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, a sort of, marketing 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, the electronic and 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 such as Enluca, Coccioni and other actors in Italy, they both were getting the possibility of signing digitally referendums, which means, you know, that these platforms that had just received the market incentive, let's 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 referenda. At least the proposal. Sorry, Mark, if you make a mistake. Why am I mentioning all of this? Well, because, for example, something that the European can union can do is this. First of all, write a sort of framework for what is, what is needed for, electronic participation tool to be compliant with the EU law and to be officially recognized for any interaction happening on this tool 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, private or public, may they be, to, 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, 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, I don't know, a dashboard or whatever, 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 what is it that you see? What you see is not only the the participatory opportunities that you are in, but every municipality, every level of governance can upload a participatory, process online, choosing themselves the specific tool they use, but with the data that goes again to the democracy data commons. Why is this solution more feasible than deploying a chatbot, by the Europe the public administration? Because, for example, this would not only, I cannot say, this would, only require interoperability of all the systems, especially with the European digital wallet. They would not this would not necessarily require a centralized, 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, they can move a step forward. You know, you asked us, it's not so easy to understand what CVKI is. K? 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, regulate the debate online according to specific rules. There can be some, I don't know, 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. 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. At own not only, I cannot 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 their their business model on that. But the problem is that oftentimes, what is centralized is infrastructures. I've recently gone to the I recently been to the Mozilla, 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 needed to deploy as, 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 AI? Because one of the questions that we have to ask ourselves is, do we want AI to be held by a monopoly made to be public or private? Or do we want it also to reflect the, values of democracy, of, even competition in the way that are embodied in the European Union at the infrastructure level as well. And there again, I mean, we can start conversations on, for example, even on blockchain technologies and distributed venture technologies and how to use them. But just to this is just to have to understand that beyond visualizing what CVKI 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, translating our democratic values and our civic values into AI to make to to enhance the civic participation and not reduce it, you know, through profundation and through, 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 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 citizen sent, we can allow blah regulation that is only risk based as it is now.

It's very interesting, the the data space, thing. It's also something that with some people that are developing civic tech tools, we were thinking about, because let's say there is a citizen citizen assembly, I don't know, in Italy and then another one in in Germany. Then, if the topic is similar, then it will be, worth it maybe to have a connection between the two citizen assembly to understand better what citizens want. And, yeah, it's it's very interesting these things.

Yes. In 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 profit led and private owned, not even inside of the European Union. 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 owned, platforms, It means that, those who, own other 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. For what concern, for example, feminist content and whatsoever. But before Trump step in, these platforms that are mostly, US based would follow the need 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, Twitter because after, January 6. And, I mean, there were other, contents that were, you know, censored or limited 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 platform. Until it is held on a private platform, this is gonna be a problem. But most of us simply accepted that since there are these huge marketplaces, let's say, these huge single sign on places. So, I mean, one size fits all and everyone has to go there. If I were, the representative of a newspaper, I would seriously think, but do we really want to communicate what we do on this social network? And this is just one one case. Okay? Let's take another one. There are some, especially local, public institutions that are already deploying chatbots and with full assistance to interact with the public. The problem is that oftentimes, 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 the questions for instance, a question, for instance, who is going to be the candidate at the next step 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. But the other problem is also that, it's I think it's news from the last month. Microsoft, so meaning Copilot, 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, chatbot for what concerns data on, even basic help, 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, health services. Why is it a private, company will get all this interaction data and understand what are the needs of the citizens and then can use that data to provide even further services. There are I mean, again, neither Mark or I are against businesses. Personally, I have no issues with them, 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, differences is also something that, I mean, US and Europe have different approach to health, one that is more public and one, more private. And, I have a lot of other questions, but, I don't know if you have more time,

or if But I can stay until one, as I said. So I don't know, Marco, if he has to step out already or I have still few minutes because I need to go. So if,

Yeah. It is, so all this ecosystem, all the data space and so on could maybe lead to some, to a society where all citizens are also active, maybe, where they can actually participate before that this is possible.

human being is a social animal. Interrupt you, but, I mean, mean, just to ask you. I mean, what happened with the Italian platform for, presenting a referendum online? Well There was a blossoming of of proposals. Was it This was a huge change because nowadays,

Thank you a lot, both,

And, I don't know if you have another question because I'm Yeah. Maybe another question could be like, if you have a message, for the people that are actively searching for new solution for, related to citizen participation. Maybe they are developing software. Maybe they are trying to do something like CVKI, but I don't know in another continent somewhere else. Like, yeah, if you have a message for them,

Yes. I mean, this is a message not only for them but for ourselves as well. I mean, there are plenty of platforms for civic engagement and democratic participation online. There are plenty but I think that most of them have already been interviewed in this pod in my point of view. Sometimes when we deploy these tools, we tend to think more of the offer and supply, say, and lessen the demand. 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 retro assistants and the first way of interacting digitally. That was not the case five years ago. That was not the case fifteen years ago. 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 citizens and, answers to their demands. Otherwise, we are creating cathedral in the desert.

I totally agree about, listening to their demands because, sometimes, this is a question that I ask that I ask my I ask myself a lot of times why people are not participating. And then, I thought maybe they are participating already. It's just that, I don't see it. And so I really agree that we should listen and be

Oh, no. They are participating. I mean, Marco said it, but he didn't use these words. But when we say pan European, we mean transnational and translocal. Something that we're getting while interacting with the especially with people that are not Italians even though the Italian base is our strongest, constituency, is that they do engage a lot, but at a local level. While Italians are mostly used to engaging at the national level or, you know, levels that are not necessarily local. Why is it relevant? Because, I mean, if you deploy a tool, you have to understand that every different, let's say at least people at the if we speak 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, interactions at the local, national, regional level. It highly depends on the history of a specific country or member state. There's something to be taken into account. And the other point is, why have there been moments such as, me too, Fridays for Future, and then there were, or Black Lives Matter and so on and so forth? What or even now, currently, there is my voice, my choice, which is a European citizen's initiative that collected way more than 1,000,000 signatures, and now it's interacting with the European Parliament, the European Commission to push forward abortion rights in Europe. 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 regardless of the platform they use. 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, to accept, you know, a series of values, a series of proposals, you were part of a 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. Right? 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 traditional, from a political tradition and then support them initially. So I do think that, you know, when it when it comes to thinking about the needs of the the demand of 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, is actually working. I mean, let's think about new ways, to make, participation easier, 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 the mock democratic participation should happen digitally, I mean, 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 cocreate with us the proposal. I mean, now we spoke about a lot of we we gave you a lot of information, a lot of ideas, and most of them are not Marco's nor Mainz. They are just, you know, the ideas of the community got integrated in all our activities. We try to cocreate in this campaign with everyone, and we try to experiment. So, currently, I mean, we will soon move to this course, so we will have a discord community for the campaign. We also already have a decidim, page for some specific activities. When I started coding it in the campaign, I tried to cocreate each any, each feedback to the European, commissions, public consultations together, experimenting with Mentimeter or with other, methods for gathering, collective intelligence. 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 they like the most of this campaign. We are literally building a political file from scratch, and it's extremely I can say it's extremely exciting.

Absolutely. And thank you again, Francesco. It's,

Thank you, Alessandro, for hosting us.