In the last post, we did our bit to pump up projects like The Voicebot as saviours of politics. But at the back of our minds are a lot of questions about what projects like this mean, many of which cut to the heart of the kind of democracy we imagine in a connected future.
The Voicebot pt II from sidekick studios on Vimeo.
There are some things we’re pretty sure of. The current system is broken. Engagement with Westminster politics is falling. The public – not least young people – are unlikely to change their views of politicians unless the system dramatically changes (and we’re not just talking a change of government). We think the internet offers a way forward (The Voicebot is just one solution, but there are others here and here and here).
But then we get stuck, and we find it hard to see much further.
Whether the internet makes things better, we just don’t know. How the technology gets used, we can’t imagine. What types of applications or services become popular, we wouldn’t place any bets. Sure, you can’t predict the unpredictable. When the future happens, it’ll feel inevitable. Nevertheless, we think there are important questions that we need to start asking ourselves. And upfront, we want to say that we love the web, but it’s no panacea and we think it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Take The Voicebot project. Yes, it’s cool that we have found a different way to give young people a voice in Parliament. Yes, we are creating a direct channel to MPs in a way that has never been done before. And yes, we are proposing prototypes that point the way towards a new seam of possibilities. But a robot that lets you talk directly to MPs throws up lots of questions too.
In an age, where the internet can enable direct democracy, who gets direct access and who doesn’t?
How do politicians handle being targeted directly by such a diverse range of individuals, each with their own hyper-niche agenda?
How can they make sense of such a broad, rapidly changing conversation from all these different people, effectively shouting at them?
In a world of one-to-one digital services with constituents tweeting their MPs, does the cult of personality become even more important?
And how does that contribute to the death of the political party?
And if that is the case, what does that mean to our current democratic system, which has so long been built around the 2-party system, government whips, lobbies, divisions and so on?
So many questions, and no answers I’m afraid. These are just thoughts bubbling around in our heads at the moment. We doubt they’ll be resolved anytime soon. We’ll keep thinking and will of course, encourage your thoughts too. Maybe we should just list questions at this stage, rather than try to answer them. That’ll be a place to start.
PS Of course, we still think The Voicebot is ace. We don’t know what it means yet but you should still have a go.
Hi, thanks for the comment and I like this article – some serious soul searching about the state of the democratic nation! I think you’re point about everyone having their own hyper-niche agenda is really interesting. I am actually a great believer in political parties as a vehicle for organising democracy, but I think they way we organise / fund them needs a serious rethink if they’re going to be fit for democracy in the 21st century.
Benedict Pringle added these pithy words on September 8, 2009 at 9:24 am
@benedict as much as i think the current party political system is utterly broken, i don’t think the solution is people talking directly to personality politicians. in truth, we’ve had a government for 12 years which is in spite of its party, and we’ll probably have something similar when the Tories get there go, but I really don’t know what goes in its place. The Voicebot is a prototype, but its certainly not the solution. more musing required.
adil added these pithy words on September 8, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again anyway. If we take away The Voicebot so we are simply left with an online or mobile short message system direct to the government which is analyzed by repetition of words to create a very simple tag cloud. This could still be used by policy makers, local government and MPs alike to learn more quickly what the buzz issues are for the people in their constituency…region…country this day or week or month.
Decision makers could access qualitative snapshots of what is being said or complained about and get a little closer to the real people out there without having to wade through paperwork, knock on people’s doors or make inaccurate generalisations. It could help them become more dynamic politicans. Maybe.
The low level involvement from the public should encourage more people to speak up and it could become like a crowd sourced democracy. But maybe I’m being a bit too idealistic.
Charlotte added these pithy words on September 9, 2009 at 12:29 am
Hey Adil et al. Awesome post; it echoes many of the things I’ve blogged about over the years.
To add to the layer of questions: direct democracy is a far better approach to political organisation than representative democracy. And its significantly more viable thanks to the internet. In fact technology has been a driving force for much political change – cf. development of domestic technology and the electoral emancipation of women.
Direct democracy will likely remove the need for MPs and political parties – which as irreducible hierarchical institutions – won’t have a role, i.e. if people represent themselves then we wont need to pay others (MPs) to do so.
Just some more thoughts of mine. Not sure how this all plays out in wider society, but there are a number of viable alternatives based on an anarchy (which is a very well organised, peaceful system rather than chaos as often portrayed) which should really be explored further.
SImon Collister added these pithy words on September 9, 2009 at 8:38 am
@simon i would have totally disagreed with you about 10 years ago, and maybe even 10 months ago, but I do wonder more and more what the role of MPs is in a world where the web can enable us to find local community, self-organised based solutions, and at the other end, globalisation is raging and the power of national states is diminishing. we’re nowhere near finding the answer, but if I was an MP stuck in the middle, I’d be worried.
Someone suggested yesterday in all seriousness that we should just replace MPs with robots, and people vote on what buttons we want the robot to press. I suppose a more human form would be more like Ebbsfleet community-owned football club http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/ where owners vote on everything the club does.
adil added these pithy words on September 9, 2009 at 10:36 am
OK. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Firstly… you could argue MPs are being disintermediated :) Absolutely agree that the flow of knowledge/power/money/etc through global networks makes traditional nation-states and their institutions increasingly redundant. Meanwhile people are still engaged politically (with a small ‘p’) on a local, community scale.
Secondly, small-scale participatory democracy has seemed to work since the birth of democracy. It only started to disenfranchise people when it was mass marketised.
The principles of the above are pretty much proven, even in modern settings, through consensus decision making – used in organisations from Korean corporations down to the Climate Camp movement :)
SImon Collister added these pithy words on September 9, 2009 at 10:53 am
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