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Video: Book Talk—Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship
Watch the Video on YouTube.com
Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders gave a talk about their book Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship at the Harvard Ash Center. The discussion was moderated by Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor and Director of the Allen Lab.
Computers, the internet, and artificial intelligence continue to reshape our society—but many democratic institutions have yet to adapt. In “Rewiring Democracy,” the authors illuminate both the promises and pitfalls of technology in contemporary democracy. Drawing on real-world examples and innovative projects, Schneier and Sanders propose practical reforms, showing how civic technologists and engaged citizens alike can help remake democracy for the digital age…
Rewiring Democracy (But Not Too Much)—a Book Review
I recently finished reading Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government and Citizenship—a book by Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders on the effects of AI on democracy. It comes out soon (October 25). It is a good read, worth reading for its myriad examples of AI in action at all levels of the democratic system. Ultimately, though, it seems to be a missed opportunity, failing to engage with many potential larger ways in which AI might affect democracy.
The book’s strength lies in its meticulous and hyper-granular description of all the ways that AI might affect elements of a democratic society, from enabling citizen power, to assisting in court cases, to empowering politicians. It offers many examples of how AI has been, will be, or could be adopted, for good and for ill. It maintains an admirably balanced and neutral stance throughout, detailing both the ways AI can be used to empower individual citizens, as well as how it could empower powerful vested interests. It is thoroughly organized, with separate sections on politics, legislation, administration, citizen and courts, and a starting briefer describing the relevant AI capabilities for each before outlining use cases and providing examples. The book admirably outlines the need for Public AI—AI as a common infrastructure provided by government, akin to water and electricity…
Video: What AI Is Doing to Politics Is Way Wilder Than You Imagined
Watch the Video on SubStack.com
Listen to the Audio on Spotify.com
If you’re like me, you’re pretty damn tired of all the breathless AI talk.
AI’s going to supercharge the economy! No, it’s going to destroy all our jobs! AI will endow us with enhanced intelligence and mind-melded cognitive powers!! No, it’s pulping our brains and killing our ability to think!!1 AI will design medicines that make us live forever!!! No, it’s going to turn on us like Skynet and eventually machines are going to shoot lasers at the last few human survivors from atop a pile of skulls!!! …
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…
Audio: Bruce Schneier: Rewiring Democracy
Listen to the Audio on PodBean.com
In this episode, we discuss Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders’s upcoming book, Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship.
Video: Office Hours with David Meltzer
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Listen to the Audio on Podcasts.Apple.com
Bruce Schneier joined David Meltzer to discuss AI and Democracy.
Rewiring Democracy: Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders on AI, Power, and the Future of Governance
How will AI reshape democratic institutions and policymaking in the 21st century?
Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship is Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders’ field guide to governing in the algorithmic age. Drawing on real projects and policy debates, it maps how AI is already reshaping lawmaking, regulation, courts, and civic participation—and shows how to bend the tech toward equity, transparency, and public accountability. Rather than dystopian panic or hype, the authors offer a pragmatic roadmap: reform and regulate AI, resist harmful deployments, responsibly use AI to improve services, and renovate democratic institutions so power is distributed, not concentrated. Publication: MIT Press, October 21, 2025, globally…
Audio: Bruce Schneier on AI as Democracy’s Power Magnifier
Artificial intelligence isn’t just a futuristic buzzword—it’s already reshaping politics, governance, and even citizenship.
Listen to the Audio on CampaignTrend.com
Artificial intelligence isn’t just a futuristic buzzword—it’s already reshaping politics, governance, and even citizenship. That’s the argument Bruce Schneier, one of the world’s foremost security technologists and author of the forthcoming Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship, makes in his conversation on the Campaign Trend Podcast.
Video: The Godfather of Security, Bruce Schneier, Rewires Democracy
Why America's Democracy Runs on 1776 Technology in a 2025 World and What To Do About It
Watch the Video on Substack.com
If Geoffrey Hinton is the Godfather of AI, then Bruce Schneier might be described as the Godfather of Security. A celebrated cryptographer and computer security expert, Schneier’s latest co-authored (with Nathan Sanders) book is entitled Rewiring Democracy and speculates on how AI might transform our politics, government and citizenship. American democracy, Schneier notes, runs on archaic 1776 technology in today’s digital 2025 world. Rather than fighting against AI then, he suggests, Americans should adapt this new technology to update how they do politics in the 21st century. But Schneier offers the crucial caveats that AI can neither solve fundamental human problems nor transcend ideology. “A value is just a bias we like,” he warns about the impossibility of a “valueless” AI system. While cautiously optimistic about AI’s potential to democratize power—from helping local politicians without resources to enabling mass citizen assemblies—he warns that without fixing underlying political and economic structures, AI will simply radically empower the already powerful. Trust the Godfather of Security on this one. AI might well turn out to be reassuringly less revolutionary than both its critics and supporters promise…
Video: Bruce Schneier Rewiring Democracy
Listen to the Audio on Libsyn.com or Watch the Video on YouTube
Stand Up is a full length show featuring a comprehensive news recap and 2 guests almost everyday. We will talk about issues that matter to you, your health, the health of your family, community, country and planet. And we will try to laugh while we do it.
The conversation with Bruce Schneier begins about 33 minutes into the audio podcast. The video is just the interview.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.