How Artificial Intelligence Is Rewiring Democracy
Excerpt
Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship by Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders (MIT Press, 2025)
Can an artificial intelligence model run for mayor? In 2024, a Cheyenne, Wyoming, mayoral candidate tried to make that case when he pledged that if he were elected, he’d outsource all decisions to an AI. He came in a distant fourth, earning only 3 percent of the vote.
But that (to my mind, rather dystopian) example explored in Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship is just one data point the authors harness to show how rapidly developing AI technology has an outsize impact on politics and public life.
Voters may know that politicians already use technology like autopen and robocalls, but increasingly, legislators rely on AI tools to email constituents, write speeches, draft messaging and bills, and ask for money. Cities are using AI to translate public meetings for non-English speakers and optimize traffic signals to reduce traffic. The military wields AI to chart moving personnel and resources. Judges are using it to draft rulings.
Cybersecurity technologist Bruce Schneier and data scientist Nathan E. Sanders argue that because AI is here to stay, liberal democracies must harness it for good. The two writers are optimists about how politicians can integrate technology so the government can become more accessible and responsive to its citizens.
Though the authors acknowledge concerns around AI—they describe the second Trump administration’s aggressive push for AI as reckless—they avoid alarmism. At times, though, I wished for more exploration of not whether technology can do certain tasks but whether it should. Admittedly, I’m biased, but I found the idea of AI replacing certain journalistic enterprises (something they saw as likely) particularly distasteful.
The book did not convince me that embracing AI will make our government more responsive to the actual humans being governed. But the authors present a thought-provoking, succinct, timely exploration. Read it and decide for yourself—just don’t outsource your conclusions to an AI agent.
Categories: Book Reviews, Rewiring Democracy, Text