Comment by Micah Weinberg

Decisions about the design of tools that shape citizen deliberation, such as which voices to surface, how to frame trade-offs, and what counts as relevant information, are effectively delegated to private entities without a democratic mandate or accountability. Addressing this requires greater public oversight of private deliberation vendors and sustained investment in publicly governed alternatives. [...] Reorientation demands collaboration between AI developers and deliberative-democracy practitioners at the design stage, rather than only at the deployment stage. Unverified source (2026)