Krenn algorithmic democracy_bd

2. p. 2democracygps.org >70% polled “disapprove of how Congress is handling its job” [pollingreport.com, 2016; CNN, 2014] Voting rates have not changed much in 100 years [fairvote.com, 2016; electproject.org, 2014] Polarization is increasing, but there is still a large population of moderates [Pew, 2014] Project U.S. voters are frustrated, but have not yet given up or irreversibly polarized

3. p. 3democracygps.org Every citizen (age 10 and up) regularly completes a survey of their political views, legislative goals, and positions on current issues Every user chooses decision-making delegates for national, state, and local issues Algorithms will dynamically monitor agreement between users and their delegates Algorithms will predict voter support for current legislation Algorithms will produce outlines of new legislation with support of broad majorities Our vision: Proposal

4. p. 4democracygps.org Prototype Representative Democracy Direct democracy Your Algorithmic Democracy Account Summary Political Views (from Pew people-press.org) S.D. D. A. S.A. (Strongly Disagree; Disagree; Agree; Strongly Agree) x Government is almost always wasteful and inefficient x Good diplomacy is the best way to ensure peace Legislative goals Fair, equitable, and transparent taxes Zero deficit in 5 years Delegates Economy Rand Paul( )/Elizabeth Warren(x)/None( ); (82% Alignment - How?) Education Marshall Tuck(x)/Tom Torlakson( )/None( ); (76% Alignment - How?) State, County, City, National Issues Convention Current Issues Environment Support( )/Oppose( )/Neutral(x): Oil drilling in Alaska's ANWR Climate Change Support(x)/Oppose( )/Neutral( ): comprehensive carbon tax Upcoming votes Your political views and delegation predict the following positions for you: Support(predicted-Why?)/Oppose(override): S.744 - Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. (Details: Balanced background; Support(override)/Oppose(predicted-Why?): H.R.5759 - Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act of 2014. (Details: Balanced background; Arguments pro; Arguments con) Opt-in system will be validated with high quality random polling and include elements of deliberative democracy

5. p. 5democracygps.org Possible issues for discussion and consensus: surveillance cameras, government transparency, electronic voting, or others Development steps: Step 1: Finish software deployment Step 2: Apply to Piedmont issues Step 3: 100 students on 10 university campuses; city or state initiative Extend open-source code and apply to real political issues Plan Following computer security best practices will be vital to our success

6. p. 6democracygps.org It documents differences between the voters’ will and government actions It enables better laws to be proposed and passed It will pressure members of government to support the interests of all of their constituents Benefits could include immigration, criminal justice, education & tax reform Algorithmic democracy can evolve into a self-supporting non-profit by transparently selling access Algorithmic democracy will benefit the user, government, & society Profit No existing platform solves all these problems

7. p. 7democracygps.org Algorithmic democracy will enable compromise, influence elections, and should lead to better laws and less waste Government is too big and important to be left to the politicians [C. Bowles] ➔ ➔ I am an engineer, and I want to help Precedent

8. p. 8democracygps.org References Adhocracy: https://adhocracy.de Chester Bowles: http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/1253.html Brigade: https://www.brigade.com/ CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/09/politics/cnn- poll-congress/ Countable: https://www.countable.us/ DeliberativeDemocracy: http://cdd.stanford.edu/: it must achieve political equality, its decisions must embody deliberation, and it must avoid tyranny of the majority DemocracyOS: http://democracyos.org ElectProject: http://www.electproject.org/2014g FairVote: http://www.fairvote.org/research-and- analysis/voter-turnout/ Flux: https://github.com/voteflux/ Gentzkow: https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/Polariz ationIn2016.pdf LiquidFeedback: http://liquidfeedback.org/ NationBuilder: http://nationbuilder.com Pew: http://www.people- press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the- american-public/ PollingReport: http://www.pollingreport.com/CongJob.htm VerifiedVoting: https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/internet- voting/vote-online/ (need for valid, private, coercion resistant, & auditable voting) WeThePeople: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ WhatsGoodly: https://whatsgoodly.com/

9. p. 9democracygps.org Traditional direct democracy demands too much time and attention from the voter and doesn’t scale brigade.com and countable.us are private firms which lack transparency and don’t respect the users’ time Democracy.earth is a non-profit aiming to develop a “decentralized democratic governance protocol” It does not emphasize the importance of broad deliberative discussion or of collecting users’ opinions as well as votes We may be duplicating unknown systems What’s new here? Appendix We are proposing a fresh and agile approach to make useful and user-friendly tools

10. p. 10democracygps.org Needs to be constrained by budget and by law Needs to be robust to activists from the far left and right, protect minorities, manage privacy concerns, and maintain “one citizen one vote” Apply demographic weighting Learn from professional pollsters and Scantegrity Needs broad participation A transparent and algorithmic democracy system will face many challenges

11. p. 11democracygps.org [Gentzkow, 2016] Political ideology has not shifted much in 45 years Political Ideology, 1970-2015

12. p. 12democracygps.org Budget: $22M/$23M maximum 10 projects; 5040 budget options Proof of Principle: Computer optimized budget allocation can satisfy more voters Optimization balances cost and importance

13. p. 13democracygps.org Chris Krenn is a computational physicist and metallurgist working near San Francisco since 2001 and has been exploring electronic democracy systems since 2013. He has a B.S. from Yale and a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley. About the author

Krenn algorithmic democracy_bd

democracyGPS

Krenn algorithmic democracy_bd