Review of Rewiring Democracy
Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders have been working on Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship (The MIT Press, Oct. 21, 2025). Their broad-ranging review imagines the many ways AI will impact politicians, legislators, administrators, jurists, and citizens. Their example-packed analyses, with calls to action, are largely hope-filled, with comments such as: “Despite the fantasies of some, we don;t anticipate that AIs will replace the humans who perform these tasks anytime soon. Nonetheless, over time, we expect that AI will make civil servants more effective at their jobs, and democracy more responsive to its constituents. Administrators and policymakers need to ensure that these efficiencies make government serve people better and more equitably.” They believe that: “Security is the biggest major barrier to using AI in democratic applications that no one seems to be talking about.” In general, Schneier and Sanders expect positive outcomes from AI implementations, but wisely warn of dangers: “If our goal is to ensure that AI generally benefits democracy rather than harms it, then we have a lot of work to do.” Their forward-looking scenarios mean that they repeatedly use words like: could, should, must, and can. They close with 7 organizing principles, such as “AI tools must be made widely available” and “AI developers and tools must be transparent.” Then they offer 4 paths such as promoting “responsible use of AI in society” so that “we may just be able to use this technology to rewire democracy to better serve all of us.” Overall, a valuable, wise, and balanced contribution in non-technical terms that will be welcomed by the five communities they address, and I hope the researchers and developers who could produce the happier outcomes the authors seek.
Categories: Book Reviews, Rewiring Democracy