Automatic transcription, there could be errors.
Alessandro Oppo (00:00)
welcome to another episode of the Democracy Innovators Podcast and our guest of today is Alberto Fernandez Gibaja. And so welcome to the podcast and thank you for your time. And and as f I mean the first question is if you'd like to tell us something about you, something about your background or personal life
Alberto (00:06)
Thank you, Alessandro.
Sure. yeah, my name is Alberto Fernandez Gibaja. I'm currently leading International IDEA global work on everything at the intersection of technology and democracy. For those of you I'm familiar with International IDEA, we are an intergovernmental organization with 35 member states and global presence and member states from all over the world, all of them democracies.
with just one mandate, which is to support democracy worldwide.
Alessandro Oppo (01:02)
Thank you. And and how did you come to this h when you realized that technology could be interesting for democracy?
Alberto (01:10)
That's
an interesting question I am of I'm old enough to be of those that generation that we started working on technology as From from a positive point of view we thought and we joined the wave of enthusiasm that at the beginning of the of the 2010
A lot of the people in area of democratic governance, participation and so on thought that technology was going to be a great asset for better democracies, better, more powerful civil society, more fair political debates. The Arab Spring, the fact that the Arab Spring basically started online through
Facebook was kind of like an eye-opener for many people. And I also want to think that that's to a certain extent the case. There are certain countries, hybrid democracies, democracies that are
struggling or authoritarian countries that are like open enough but still authoritarian where actually technology has made that possible and had made possible for certain groups to challenge the government. There is this idea of the digital dilemma of dictators. You can't curtail completely technology because when you become North Korea, where...
you lose out in comparison to anybody else. But if you open too much technology, that means people have a mean to express, a vehicle to express, to share, to contact others outside. And that reduce your capacity to control your population. So that idea still stays there. But then, well, then it was 2016.
Then it was Brexit, was the first Trump electoral victory, the issue of disinformation, the manipulation of information environment, and I think that from there we have been on a downhill of technology becoming not only a fundamental part of our democratic societies, but also one of the main challenges on how to deal with technology and with its impact on
on democracy at large and specifically on how we take democratic decisions either through elections but also through political debate.
Alessandro Oppo (04:20)
And I mean IDEA, which kind of project are you working on with your organization?
Alberto (04:26)
So we, as an organization, we do mostly four things. We generate knowledge, we write reports, policy papers, policy briefs, sometimes manuals on key issues that our stakeholders are demanding. is usually very niche things, very highly specialized.
on very particular things like how to organize outside of country voting or what are the federal possibilities for South Sudan, so the very, very highly specialized content. We do a lot of advising and capacity building for governments. So we work hand hand with...
governments, democratic governments all over the world, supporting them in different things, improving their parliamentary processes, drafting new legislation.
creating new electoral processes and so on. We convey dialogues, we create spaces for stakeholders to have dialogue and to exchange ideas and learn from each other. And then we do advocacy. As an intergovernmental organisation, our advocacy is a bit different than what you would expect from organisations like Amnesty International or things like that.
So it's more at the multilateral level. We do lot of work within the UN system with other regional organizations like the Organization of American States or the Council of Europe or the African Union and other spaces where key discussions on democratic aspects are being taken.
Alessandro Oppo (06:39)
I was wondering like if you notice any difference in relation of the I mean in the different regions, so the different government from the different countries, if there is a different kind of behavior or attitude, I don't know.
Alberto (06:52)
towards technology or towards democracy in general.
Yeah, there is indeed a very, very big difference. And it's, I mean, for both. When it comes to democracy, when it comes to democracy, it's a bit, this is a little bit, we don't have time for in a podcast to analyze this, but there are different tradition and historic trajectories that
Alessandro Oppo (07:01)
Yeah, I mean I can imagine for both
Alberto (07:28)
whose regions one way or another. So for instance, Latin America, it's very aware and very, I would say still traumatized to a certain point of the story of the last century. And for those countries, as imperfect as their democracies might be sometimes, there is no other
game in town. Democracy is the only possibility. So countries like Mexico, like Brazil, like Argentina, like Chile, like Peru, Colombia, they might have many problems, but there is no alternative to, they don't want anything else than a democracy. The discussion is more about how to make it better and for the citizens and so on. think it used to be the case in Europe that that is certainly that
tide is starting to change slightly. It is the case in most African countries, but that's also starting to change and we're seeing how many Sahel countries have embraced military dictators. There is like a coup d'etat type of like domino effect in the region. And for Asia, it's a bit more complex, also because Asia, it's not an homogeneous region.
discuss everybody together, but it's a very diverse region. So India, it's clearly, it's the biggest democracy in the world. And there's no questions about the democratic system in India. Other regions have not had many experiences of proper democracy, or they keep like going in and out of democracy, countries like Thailand, Malaysia, where they have
kind of like they have tried to create hybrid control models of democracy that are always in the line between it's popular control over decision making and equality and exercising that control possible or not possible. It's always in that blurry line. And that is reflected also in the way technologies address. So many...
most countries realize that...
A key factor to the survival or the strengthening of the democracies is how they manage technologies, how they manage the impact of technology, how they adapt to it. But then there are different ways to relate to it. So European countries tend to go more into legislation. They want to impose rules because it's a rules-based order.
Alessandro Oppo (10:20)
in regarding like to the let's say digitalization that could be a mix of how because the previous question was the relationship between the different countries in relation to could be technology or democracy. and so I wonder to digitalization have you seen like a different kind of
Alberto (10:45)
Th there is as I said before, there are some differences between how regions approach this. and in general Europe tends to be more on the regulatory side of things. They tend to try to tame or control what technology companies and the technology space does through through regulation.
It is also like a big enough market, so all companies will comply. So now we all have on our iPhones USB C and that's because the European Union forced Apple to do that. And and they all complain but then they they they they comply with it because they're not going to lose the European market just for for the charger.
and and because and and like this, this is very obvious, very visual because we can see it, but there are many things that that go in the in the same line. So it generally works. it's just sometimes it's not enough. other countries are because their legislation is weaker or their their enforcement is weaker, their markets are smaller, so they know that let's say meta can threaten Colombia to live. because meta can survive without Colombia, it's it's fine.
but but any government that does something that eventually pulls meta out of the country will f face a huge backlash from from the population. Because people want to keep scrolling on on Instagram. so th they are less powerful, they don't have infrastructure, governmental infrastructure like the European Union that can impose rules. So they they are more they they're forced to be more on
negotiation mood and they try to find agreements and and working modalities where civil society, private companies and governments get together. Some exceptions like Brazil, for instance, Brazil doesn't have a problem with imposing this again because it's a big market, so nobody wants to lose out in in Brazil, India and so on. And and I think this is a clear this is a clear signal. Private companies
Private tech companies today are as powerful as medium sized countries, and they can they can impose their will on on these countries. They can't impose their will on the European Union, on Brazil, on India, or or or the United States, obviously. Indonesia, Australia, some some certain countries are capable of of of imposing things to the to tech companies, but most countries are not.
so they need to ideally they should create alliances with other countries and impose legislation with other countries together. so it's fine to lose out on a particular African country, but nobody wants to lose out on the whole African continent. so that should be ideally one of the ways to go, but that sadly doesn't happen very often. reaching agreements on on
tech policy are it's extremely, extremely difficult. tech companies spend millions of euros in lobbying, which it's effective. But also there is not clarity on what this legislation should have. so it's not that there is an agreement between countries like we want this particular thing, please do it. and there is a lot of di differing opinions on on how to go about it. So that also makes it very difficult to have this type of like regional
pieces of legislation.
Alessandro Oppo (14:41)
Of course. And I w I was thinking how do you imagine like the future? Let's say that I mean digitalization is happening also right now and also in the past years and I'm thinking like if in the future like the I mean democracy and technology are like tightened ever more than now because it could be like a
Something that I don't know, an abs like a very strong centralization of power or like could be decentralized, could be so how what are
Alberto (15:25)
I think there are for me there are two fundamental questions that will define the way technology works in society in general and in in our political and and systems to organize our politics. The first one is choke points. who controls the tech stack?
and who has capacity to influence the tech stack.
There are not that many choke points, but there are some of them. And and and we are all very unprotected. for those. one of them is semiconductors protection. it is enhanced in the hands of
one country, two countries, Taiwan and South Korea mostly, the the production, the physical production of semiconductors. There is one country that controls that has well there is one company that can produce the ultraviolet lithography machines that can produce modern semiconductors. China is trying to catch up but as they advanced the other like the technology also advanced. So
Right now you can stop every I mean it is there is a possibility that it's not zero that we run we we don't have the capacity to produce semiconductors. So that will that that's if something happens in Taiwan or Taiwan decided to stop producing or or I don't know. there are many many possibilities to for that to happen. And that will imply we can produce cars, we can produce TVs, we can produce
many things. but semiconductors is not the only one. We also have chok points in in other parts of the of of of the global tech stack.
The second question, and this is related to the first one, seems to be also who is going to control the AI stack? And and it's related because the AI stack is part of the global tech stack. So who is the hardware, who's going to control for me there are like four parts of that tech stack. The hardware part, and that's the same semiconductors.
Computing cap capacity, where the data centers, who will own them, who will build them, who is going to own the capacity to run the systems, the AI systems that by what we know now they're extremely inefficient in terms of energy and and computing needs and so on. or I don't know if they're inefficient, I don't know if there is a technical way to do them more efficient. That was what DeepSeek.
apparently was capable of doing but
doesn't seem to be evolving in that direction. But there is a question on on how much how much kap computing capacity can we create? And who is going to control that computing capacity? Data. They are the second layer of the AI stack is about data. And and we have a problem with data because AI is going to be this is a personal opinion obviously, but AI is going to be useful.
Insofar the data we fit to the system to the systems are is useful data. So and I'm not speaking about large language models that we all use for doing a shopping list or correcting a paragraph. It's more about specialized AI applications. so
The medical data of the public serv public health system in Italy, it's incredibly valuable because that can train an AI system. But that's also it's also incredibly sensitive because it's not that difficult to I mean it's it's not anonymized probably it can't be anonymized, so you have to be able to link the person to the report written by the doctor. so it's it's
It's incredibly valuable because with that data you can probably do thousands of improvements in in medical science. It is also incredibly sensitive. And and how do we manage data and how do we control data? It's also part of how we are going to relate with the technology in the future. people will be I think people will be very against
artificial intelligence in they f if they find out that a lot of their private information is there. I I I have I sometimes have feels a bit weird when I realize that Claude knows personal things about me. And it's and it's because I t I I told it, right? But Salin is like, because you live in this part of the city. It's like shit, why do you know that? You shouldn't be knowing that. So
That I think that is going to multiply in in the near future. the third part is the foundation models. the and this is I don't know how the technology is going to evolve, but my my fear is that there is going to be a handful of foundation models. that are that because of economy of scale they will keep evolving faster than any model. It will be impossible to catch up.
and who contr like who controls that models controls like a fundamental layer of the AI of the AI stack. So if you control a model, you're suddenly everybody's your I mean you can you have access to a lot of information but you can also stop supplying the model to anybody. So let's say you are Airbus, European
company and your AI system that helps in hundreds of ways of building planes relies on an American company and then that American company decides to stop supply that or decides to steal your designs and fit those designs to Boeing. there are a lot of implications of of that. And then the last part, which is the one we usually are more concerned about and I think is the one easier to solve is the application layer.
Most of our individual experience with AI it's it's large language models. but I think the real change of AI is going to be on on very specialized applications. So if if you are a doctor it will be the an application that helps you as a doctor. that's gonna that's gonna be the real gate changes. So
This AI stack and how it's controlled by whom it's going to be fundamental at the geopolitical level, at the
society level and at the democratic level. At the geopolitical level because it will create a half and half nots type of wall. and and I I don't see
I don't see an agreement the type of agreements that we got at the beginning of the nineteenth and twentieth at the beginning of the twentieth century to like share this the share the shirt a system so we can send telegrams between different countries and that type of thing. I don't see that happening. So at the geopolitical level. At the political level, because the implications, the second second effects of
of AI are gonna have a fund like fundamental reshape the way democracies and and political system work and at the society level as well. I this is not my own sentence is somebody I I work with that say that artificial intelligence is not a communications technology, it's a cognitive technology. And that changes the impact of a the impact of a cognitive technology is way bigger than of a communications technology.
Even the printing press was a communications technology. It allows us to communicate ideas in a different way. And that that simple the printing press is you can trace almost all the evolution of society science the invention of the printing press to the invention of the printing press. I don't I don't believe in the hype, but there is there is a scenario where
We can do the same in 300 years, we can do the same of linking all the evolution of the less the next three hundred years to artificial intelligence and the way the cognitive change that that it implies. and I know this is this sounds a little a lot like Silicon Valley type of of hype, just just so they can sell start up and and get stupid high valuations. but there is indeed
a possibility of of the technology slowly in in a long very long term changing fundamentally some of these of these questions and we are not we're not having those those those those debates we're not considering those type of things what happens with education how do we when we have a brain that thinks for us how do we use our brain for i i I I study
social science in university in humanities and and and to a certain extent it gives me a little bit of pleasure to know that a lot of people now is saying, well, it's gonna be all about humanities because the we will solve the technical part. the medicine we don't need we don't we're not I'm ex exaggerating, right? But we don't need researchers on medicine. That can be done with AI. We need people with humanities
training to know what we should be doing with this cognitive potential we usually didn't like we used not to have.
It sounds very
AI optimistic but I'm I'm not.
Alessandro Oppo (26:40)
Yeah like I'm also quite impressed when I use AI because it is impressive what it can do. Does and but yeah I'm also I also ask to myself this kind of question like r also regarding education and because now it's wonderful like to write like a let's say a boring email maybe we can use chat GPT or whatever
But we are used to write and and so also for new generation is something
Alberto (27:16)
Exactly.
I I two two things. I I love one comic stripe that is I don't remember where it was published, where it's somebody sitting in front of a computer speaking with a colleague and say, See, I use AI to I gave AI one sentence and it wrote this long email. And then on the other side there is somebody who say, Look,
I got this long email and it summarized AI helped me summarize it in one sentence. and that process, which I mean it seems like a joke, but that process it's it's our it's it's fundamental. Like the thinking process of writing an email and actually discerning the meaning and understanding the what it says, if we don't do it, if we lose the capacity to be able to do that and and again
writing reports and and and thinking and and and discussing ideas that's risky and and we need to understand what's going to happen. when when institutions that are civic pillars of society like the media, like the universities, where new ideas come up, when those are hollow out by by artificial intelligence.
What's going to happen when we don't have
like universities. what's going to happen when all of our society works through a handful of foundation models that can be used. Can be used. I don't believe I don't believe they're going to be salary sentinent and and them capable of like running us and this will become the matrix. But but there will be people that will control them. And what happened we will be able to to take the Bastille?
Do a new French revolution and and cut the head of the not not of a f of a person but of the machine. Will will we be able to do that? That's I think that's the question we're not putting in front of us. We're more worried about there's a deep fake. but that's that that's a that's a sort of problem.
Alessandro Oppo (29:32)
Yeah.
Yeah, it could be also an occasion maybe to put in discussion a lot of things that we are used to doing society. maybe I'm thinking also regarding education, and but yeah, I also saw that comic the stripe regarding the one that write the mail, the other one that read it and it was quite
Alberto (29:47)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
summarize it very well, yeah.
Alessandro Oppo (29:59)
Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, exactly. And I mean regarding like the I mean who control the AI stack who control also as you say the semicon semiconductor or foundation models like what could be yeah I don't know a solution because I there are s also some it's also in relation to sovereignty of data.
maybe and yeah what could be yeah a possible solution to this because I I think or it came from the people that we just start to use I don't know Mastodon instead of Facebook but it's hard
Alberto (30:46)
Yeah,
that that's that's that's a difficult one. part of it will come from the people and I I really hope there is going to be a backlash against AI. A a positive backlash, not just people like not type of like ludits not wanting to use it, but like a positive backlash that people will the same way that apparently young generations like kids
in their like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old kids are starting to have a certain backlash against mobile phones and they they so they organize like gatherings where everybody drops their phone at the entrance and then they so they kind of like inter interact offline.
so that's kind of they they're realizing the dangers and they don't want to be sitting in a room with their friends looking at the phone, so they they realize how to work against the the machinery that forced them. there is no one solution, there is no one magic bullet, silver bullet that will solve things, but there are things that we can do. we
The EU is right in moving the debate towards sovereignty. We need to be careful about digital sovereignty because at the international at the multilateral level at the multilateral level, digital sovereignty is a term that has traditionally been used by China to justify their they not respecting the normal functioning of the internet.
basically so imposing firewalls basically this idea that the internet shouldn't be a number of connecting nodes but rather isolated islands controlled by each of the governments. so but still the idea that countries need to have certain control upon their digital infrastructure is is correct.
But democratic countries cannot rely on themselves like it's not about controlling their own stack and then hoping the rest will will do the same with their own stack. I think there is a need to have some some level of agreement among countries. for data, for instance, we need a bill of rights for data. We need more clarity. I I would even constitutionalize data rights. although
constitutions are very difficult to to get an agreement. So constitutionalizing data rights is it's pretty difficult. But I I will move towards constitutionalizing data rights. I think we need mechanisms, I'm not a a a technical person, but I we need mechanisms to use sensitive data in a way that is respecting of privacy and and and human rights. And and there are ways to do that.
Estonia has been using sensitive data for many years without problems and and and they there are ways to host data in different parts and only I mean it's it's an and only provide the part of the data that it's necessary, so data minimization. data minimization shouldn't be just a slogan, it should actually work.
And there are ways to do that, and I think with AI we need to be much more creative in ways to do to do that. I also think especially the European Union but but also other countries should join efforts to promote semi open
AI system, semi open source AI foundational models. you can have a fully I'm I'm very afraid of fully open source foundational models because
'Cause we know that human beings are gonna find the worst way to use that. And be it developing a biological weapon or or doing non consensual porn images. But we will human beings will find the worst way to use that. We need to have safeguards. We can release completely open weight models into the wild, because that's
Right now that's very dangerous. It's it's it's it's too dangerous to do that. It's like if we were like if we were to release all chemicals that we produce in the world, just you could buy and buy them in a shop. That that would be too dangerous because people would do bad things with them. but we also need to allow for certain level of open source
in in in foundational models. So I think democracy should push for semi-open source foundational models in which certain aspects are controlled, there are safeguards, there are limits and there are institutions. we have created a type of institutions like ICANN for the internet or
UN can create I don't know, there are ways to create those institutions that control that or priv private public partnership. But those models that you can't create and have a logical weapon but will help you
develop a system to control the traffic jumps in a city.
That is where we that's how we can control it like that's how we can be sovereign with the technology because we won't depend on a single source. We won't depend on Anthropic or OpenAI or Google model that they can always
They they will they will do two things. They can always stop it. Not that they will necessarily do it, but the possibility is always there. And and and when it's a matter of developing, I don't know, traffic jam management system, there is no interest. But when when these systems are used for warfare, then then then it gets way more tricky. And then the second thing is that we know the companies tend to
not in always improve the product but and shittify the product. We t they tend to eventually just try to get as much profit as possible rather than make the product good. And we have seen that with social media. They have kicked out people of social media. Now social media will this is my my wild guess, but so the time of social media has ended. We we don't we live in a post social media world already. and that's because the product became
Like nobody wants to use it anymore as it was. So now it's a different it's a post social media world. So they will also do that. And and and for social media it's not it's not the end of the world because okay, fine, we use other ways to communicate. But for a cognitive technology, we can allow Anthropic or Google or OpenAI to take those decisions. So or or or Chinese providers. so I think that's
That's also fundamental a fundamental part of the picture.
Alessandro Oppo (39:04)
Yeah and I was thinking about this project I don't know if you are aware of the AgenticState.org and yeah what are if you have read it what are your thoughts if you think that that is a viable way for a different states
Alberto (39:35)
I'm I'm I'm not sufficiently familiar with I I know the paper, I know some of the authors. I'm not familiar enough with with their proposal. I know there is a lot of conversation on how the state can
hardness artificial intelligence. and and and I will go back to what I was saying before, it's all about data and the trust on using data and and
how how you manage to use data in a way that people trust. So you know that by surrendering your data to a certain extent to the state, there is no no second second degree consequences, negative consequences of of that.
Alessandro Oppo (40:39)
Yeah I I mean isn't this something like the like as you said if an AI system in the US is used in Europe for the let's say something not very important then everything is okay. Then if there is a potential whatever conflict or situation then of course you are dependent and you cannot really
do anything. I I wonder if also the situation for data is like because most of the times is like this that also if you give data to the state nothing happens. but historically there are situations where the state I mean the state is an entity then depends who is in charge who has power
so in let's say democratic society nothing will happen but if then there is a change in the in the way the the state is leaded then there could be troubles maybe, I don't know.
Alberto (41:53)
That's and and and you say that's the fundamental part in in a democratic society. and that's why we have democratic societies because
I I often say some democratic societies are about predictability. You know that that certain things can happen. And you know that you know that you can get rid of a government if if need be. It's not that it's not that democracies elect better governments, it's that they can get rid of bad governments and and there is that level of predictability, which is basically what
it's it's predictability is what rule of law means. there are rules so they're not going to be randomly exactly things like your data is and the d the government salad is tracing or cross crossing data to realise who is I don't know opposing the government online or that type of things. or or who are the I mean
can think of worse things like who are the more likely people to use the health system the most in the next ten years and then decide that they are not going to get access to it because it's too expensive. That is doable. You know that a democracy will not allow that to happen, because there there's a rule of law. There is nothing impeding a dictatorship to do that. so you say there it's it's about having democratic societies.
it's it's not about as we say it's not about democratizing AI. That that is very beautiful for conferences and and to write papers and and to speak in the international fora, but democratizing AI doesn't make sense. We don't need to democratize AI. We need democratic societies to manage AI. and that's a different thing. because
That's what matters, that there is predictability, that there are rules and that we can impose those rules. And we won't be able to impose those rules if we don't have certain sovereignty. And and I think that's where as I said before, the concern of the European Union makes sense to go that because if you want to impose your rules, you suddenly need certain sovereignty.
Alessandro Oppo (44:29)
Makes sense. And and yeah also regard like before I ask you how do you imagine like
society after digitalization. But maybe the the question could be reframed more like if you imagine a change let's say in the political life in the in the way also in democratic society because n now there is I mean in most of the country when when we talk about democracies representative democracy and I wonder if I mean because technology could also allow let's say a sort
Kin maybe something like we could call it direct democracy, but could be also something else, a more like hybrid sort of democracy between direct and representative and
Alberto (45:31)
I personally don't believe in those models. for practical reasons, not for ideological or or or ethical reasons. It's for practical reasons. Ethically, it sounds good. it's just not practical. And and it's not practical at the individual level, but it's not practical at the administrative and and governing level. So y we can't
demand people to spend a huge amount of time, of their free time, in managing the state. there should be spaces for consultation. I am all into public consultations and and and and reinforcing this idea of this connecting belt between power and people.
shouldn't only be political parties. there should be the state and the administration should listen to the citizens, respond to the citizens, media should respond to the citizens and not create manipulate the information environment to think to make citizens think what the problem is so yes all into into that
But decision making it's more complex than an individual idea.
And there is democratic societies need to delegate into a group of people. You can't you can't articulate clear ideas on asking everybody.
And that's because the idea of direct democracy or like deliberative democracy assumes that demo that government can be a win win situation for all the society. And that's not true.
Every single policy has losers and winners. And and politics is about who loses and who wins with every every policy. Clear example making education free. There are losers if you make education free. There's people who is losing money because they invest in private education.
there is people who because of their politic economic situation they have an advantage but if you make education free then they lose part of that advantage because they don't they had an advantage because they could access levels of education that now everybody can access, so they lose that advantage and now they have to compete with more people. the people trying
religious organizations lose because they were able to control and make and and have an income out of education and now maybe they can. So there are losers with every single policy. And they're winners. If you make education free, it's it's quite evident who wins. And politics is about who wins and who loses. So if we try to find always deliberate everything, we will always try to find
we will first of all it's very difficult to deliberate. There is people people with I mean deliberation is not an equal exercise. people have more capacity to convince, others are more charismatic and so on, and they they know better to convince, and so there are many things that shape that. But you would not always find the right policy. and there is a value also in negotiations.
between political actors.
I people hate this, but I think part of the work of a parliament is precisely that that you sit down and speak with all the political groups and and find agreements and say, like, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna vote on favor of this law, and then I will get your support for this other file. and and we exchange cars and and if if this is done ethically, obviously, and without
Without going against the principles of your party, that's fine. That's part of the democratic game. And that is needed. That is that is important. We we we have demonized that type of behavior, but that is actually part of the democratic arrangement. That's how democratic societies work. The agreement is at that level and not at the society level. At the society level, it's it's it's impossible to find those those agreements. And then the last thing is about expertise.
I shouldn't be asked about I shouldn't I I I shouldn't be consulted on waste management of the city where I live. Because I have no idea. I've absolutely no idea how it works. So there's people who have dedicated their whole life to research that and to study different models and how do you waste manage in the best way. I have no idea how it works. I
My opinion shouldn't be that important because I don't know anything about it. What I might have is some political and ideological general ideas. Like, well, whatever you do with waste management, I hope it's not against the environment or it supports the environment. That's why there is a representative in Parliament that will bring that idea from me.
But it's but I but I'm not engaging to how to organize the waste management of the city where I live because I I have no idea about this. And and my opinion is we like to say everybody's opinions count. No. The expert opinion counts, not my opinion, because I have no idea about this topic. So shouldn't be deciding about this this particular thing. And direct democracy assumes that everybody has the capacity to decide on everything. So
What will happen if we were to have a direct democracy system? That we will become a heuristic society. We will just vote by by by heuristics. We think, okay, this is the way to vote. And we will eventually create what was the old system. We will eventually create political parties. We will aggregate ideas and then follow leads on what we vote.
That's the same what we have, that's what political parties are for. They aggregate ideas and they say, I'm gonna go to parliament and I'm gonna represent your big ideas, your cosm cos conceptualization of the world, into each of the different legislations, be it waste management or should we ban plastic bags or or should we build a new airport? I don't know, like all these small decisions where I don't have the capacity to.
to take decision. So if we were to do it well, if technology because we do have the technology, if we were to do it well, we will end up having the same system, just much more complicated.
Alessandro Oppo (53:25)
Yeah. I'm thinking I was thinking about what you were saying and that as as an example you took free education the advantage and the disadvantage for the could be for a group of people or for the others can also be seen in short terms and long terms because and this could be interesting and also
I I'm thinking because expertise is fundamental because I mean also I don't know anything about I don't know bridges but as a citizen I could say yeah the cities the bridge there is not maybe could be bad for environment because maybe my expertise is environment or something else. And then I was thinking f for political parties because yeah I'm very interested by
also in Italy and I always say this that in Italy there was the Five Star Movement that was using the Rousseau platform. And I was thinking that as you as you said political parties aggregate not ideas but yeah interests exactly. So could be maybe more
Alberto (54:47)
interest, yeah.
Alessandro Oppo (54:54)
a specific interest instead of because a political parti often aggregate many different ideas and goals. Yeah just
Alberto (55:10)
yes. this is it gets very tricky because you the example of Italy is very good. You can have wide broad temp parties like like the traditional centre right and center left Democrazia Cristiana in Italy or the PDE that they try to
To cover a very big part of society because that's the way to win an election. but then because they cover too many, they can't represent them well. but if we go to the extremes, then we go to like single issue parties, where you just work on one particular thing and and a single issue party might be
Good at some point if if that's a key issue. But then if your only ideology is one thing, then when you are in government or when you are in parliament, you have so many other things to decide. So w w what is your moral compass in the rest of the things? So I I I would think parties should use technology wisely to understand.
their voters or their constituencies but also understand the rest of society. and and and know where people I mean one of the main issues why people don't don't engage in politics is because they don't feel represented and and and sometimes it's because how can it be that
one of the main if if if you ask people one of their main problems in for instance in Italy or in Spain where I'm from or in many countries is housing. And housing is not at the center of the debate in most countries. So people understandably get angry because they feel their main concern in their day to day life is housing and then politicians speak about something else. They don't feel reflected. Like why are they not speaking about housing? This is what
matters. so I think political parties should be using technology wisely to understand these things better and to talk to citizens on what really concerns them. And when they do, they are actually very successful. It's just our information and this is for another podcast but our information environment is broken right now. and and they have to if you try to speak about what actually matters to people
you are not facing you're facing a a wall of of penetrating an information environment is broken and and it's not it's it's not sweet na right now to for those messages.
Alessandro Oppo (58:19)
And talking about messages, if you have a message for the people that are working in the field of could be democracy, democracy innovations or d democratic innovations and yeah if you have a a message for them.
Alberto (58:42)
My message will be and I have always said this
The easy sp the easy part is the technology. You can always find a technological solution. the difficult part is the political will. is the politics of it. I I don't know, I I I can't. But I know it's very easy to create a super fancy tool that aggregates people's opinion through AI and that's that's easy. That's doable. It's not it's not
ro I mean it's a rocket science for me because I'm not a programmer but but it's for a programmer it's not rocket science. It's relatively easy. You can probably buy code now something that more or less works. It's the politics. So I don't focus on I I have seen this so many times, just very well intentioned people focusing on the technology and showing how cool the technology is. But then
they have zero political understanding and political will, so it never it never goes anywhere. There are hundreds and hundreds of tools that are super cool, that are lying around nobody using them. because they didn't invest enough on the political side of things.
Alessandro Oppo (1:00:06)
Thank you, Alberto. And i if you want to add something else, maybe I forgot So thank you again.
Alberto (1:00:09)
That's my pleasure.
Member discussion: