Citizens’ Assembly: a Complementary Tool to Develop Legislative Guidelines and Raise Public Awareness on Data Privacy and Artificial Intelligence
I attended the first press session when Citizens’ Assembly was announced in the UK to discuss Climate Change and must admit I was very impressed by the genuine effort to bring both sides of the argument and scientific evidence into the same room. It has also been very successful in other countries like Ireland when dealing with controversial issues like gay civil partnership and abortion. There is no public appetite nor awareness for a robust AI/Data guidelines legislative framework and a Citizens’ Assembly might change that.
Citizens’ Assembly is when a group of adult members of society, usually within a geographical area or country, is formed to discuss an important issue and bring forward possible policies to solve a problem or vote a change in legislation within a set period of time. The reasoning is that when a group of citizens are given fact-checked knowledge, contrasting opinions, time and resources; a well-informed adult is in a better position to provide recommendations and a verdict. It is a useful tool to engage citizens when people feel disengaged and not listened to in the democratic process and heal wounds, especially on sensitive issues like abortion. Participants do not have to change their mind, but conclude with a better understanding of a different opinion, according to some statistics shown below[1].