Contribution to the handbook
Priority · Assessed 2026-10-31
Whose voices count materially affects authority, representation and accountability. The source argues for citizen input alongside expertise and regulation, while leaving selection and influence unresolved (s-landemore-inclusive-democracy-26919ae38f0f0e10). The handoff from deliberation to a binding mandate is a consequential open choice (draft-proposal-1-6a716dd1ee1a).
Does this challenge the goal?
In-scope gap
The question asks how to specify voice and representation within the goal; it does not itself contest the citizen-centered goal. The definition leaves these choices open. Representation of future generations and natural systems raises a related boundary question, but does not establish exclusion or require a definition change (draft-proposal-17-2654341c0861).
A future question explicitly challenging whose interests the system should serve could be a definition challenge.
Why this category?
- System specification: voice and representation
- Consequential authority and accountability choices
- Risks of exclusion and unrepresentative participation
The cited participation proposal does not settle selection, decision rights or effectiveness. Potential exclusion is a risk, not proof of actual exclusion; participation or agreement with a statement is not authorization of a policy.
This is an AI assessment of contribution to the goal, separate from whether the question has an answer.
- Who should have a voice in decisions about AI governance?
- Include citizens in AI governance
- Some people could be excluded
- Before an AI-mediated account of citizen disagreement informs a binding mandate, how should its fidelity, unresolved objections, and decision-making provenance be checked, and who must authorize any policy choice the account leaves open?
- How should interests that cannot speak for themselves be represented, and who can challenge that representation?
- How can citizen control coexist with workable oversight?
- How should citizen voice be arranged across local, citywide, and national scales—and, where decisions cross borders, international institutions—and across rule-setting, oversight of implementation, and review of decisions, so that influence, accountability, coordination, and workable implementation are preserved?
- When can AI assistance become de facto governing authority without holding formal final-decision power, and what safeguards could preserve democratic control over agenda-setting, available options, implementation, and expert review?
Making and interpreting laws →
Authority, accountability and resilience →
Tests, stop conditions and unresolved work →
Read the exploration goalIdentify whose voices should be included, including the public alongside relevant experts and governing institutions, and explain the basis for that choice.
What we can say so far
AI-governance decisions should include the public, alongside relevant experts and governing institutions—not leave decisions to experts or officials alone. People affected by AI should be able to contribute diverse perspectives, including dissenting and potentially excluded voices; public input should also reach international institutions when governance crosses borders. The basis is a democratic choice: people affected by consequential rules should have a voice and be able to understand the reasons for decisions. Expertise and institutional oversight remain important for addressing technical questions and governing AI. Landemore suggests that inclusion could also strengthen government legitimacy and knowledge, though that benefit is not established by the supplied evidence. A competing view would concentrate authority in a knowledgeable elite if its demanding premises about outcomes and expertise held; those premises remain contested.
What remains open
- The supplied excerpts do not specify how citizens would be selected, informed or heard, or which measures would effectively reduce exclusion.
- The factual premises of the competing argument for concentrating authority in an epistemic elite are not resolved.
Conditions and limits
- Inclusion is proposed alongside expert involvement and regulation, not as their replacement.
- Meaningful voice requires attention to understandable reasons, unequal participation and potential exclusion; the precise standard of understanding remains contested.
- International public input is proposed, but the evidence does not specify how people across countries would participate.
- Landemore’s claims about improved legitimacy and knowledge are proposed benefits, not demonstrated effects.
Objections to consider
- The answer favors democratic voice, but the conditional outcome-based case for concentrating authority is not empirically or normatively settled.
- The answer presents elite rule as a competing conditional argument, not as Danaher's endorsed conclusion.
- The answer calls for inclusion of potentially excluded people, but no effective remedy for the identified digital divide is established.
- Unequal voice and social pressure may undermine participation; the evidence does not establish a general solution.
- Understanding is included as a condition, but the amount required and whether the author's standard is necessary remain contested.
- Algorithmic systems may limit participation and understanding; the supplied evidence does not establish how to avoid that risk.
- Different provider arrangements may expose participation systems to capture; no arrangement is established as immune.