Webinar "From Theory to Practice - The Role of AI in Scaling Deliberative Democracy"

A webinar organised in the context of the European project ORBIS (Augmenting participation, co-creation, trust and transparency in deliberative democracy) will be held on Friday, 20 June featuring Prof. Sara Greco, Full Professor at USI Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, Chiara Jermini, Post-doc at USI Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, and Claudia Coppola, Post-doc at the USI Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society. The event, titled "From Theory to Practice: The Role of AI in Scaling Deliberative Democracy", will include two sessions during which the role of Artificial Intelligence in the construction of deliberative democracy will be discussed.

As democratic systems grapple with growing complexity, polarisation, and public distrust, the need for inclusive, transparent, and high-quality deliberative processes has become ever more urgent. The ORBIS project — funded under Horizon Europe — explores how deliberative democracy can be meaningfully scaled across socio-technical systems, including digital tools and artificial intelligence (AI) playing a supporting role in enhancing collective dialogue and argument mapping.

The webinar will highlight how digital innovation can support and extend deliberative processes - provided it is rooted in human-centred design, inclusive facilitation and critical reflection. The event is designed for a diverse audience of democratic innovators, civic tech developers, public officials, researchers, and civil society actors who work at the intersection of participatory governance, AI ethics, and democratic renewal.

It will be divided into two focused sessions led by members of the ORBIS consortium.

The first interactive workshop, "Innovating Democracy Through Novel Deliberative Processes", will run from 10:30 am to 11:55 am and aims to investigate how deliberation can address complexity, rebuild trust and strengthen democratic legitimacy.

The second workshop, "Technology in Action: AI and Argument Mining in ORBIS", will take place from 12 to 12:50 pm. This second session will focus on the digital dimension of deliberation.

Participants will be introduced to the ORBIS toolkit, particularly its argument mining functions, and take part in live demonstrations and hands-on exercises to see how AI can help identify, analyse, and visualise public reasoning at scale.

The detailed webinar programme is available at the following link, and you can register for the event at this link.