Broad Listening, TTTC, Digital Democracy, and Plurality
I recently created Talk to the City Study Group for a one-hour study group lecture. This was too long, so I made a 10 minute version for an LT. What is [Broad Listening?
nishio The Difference Between Broadcasting and Broad Listening https://gyazo.com/1a5328d749ad7a4ad4525e7cbed2a01e
The direction of the arrow is reversed.
What is [Talk to the City(TTTC)?
https://gyazo.com/e05735418ecaf67a8a95d29cd9806442
OSS (AGPL) tool that displays a summary of topics in clusters
concrete example
How Talk to the City works.
https://gyazo.com/0630e4176f72582ae4cb259e84268e0a
Simple CSV with only two input columns, "comment-id" and "comment-body
LLMs extract opinions of moderate size
Clustering and visualization in BERTopic
Web UI to display it is created in React and rendered in static HTML
That's now hosted on GitHub Pages.
Just run one Python script and it will do it all! Easy!
Input data can be irrelevant to politics
Why has there been so much broadcasting and so little broad listening?
https://gyazo.com/8aed1a6ee239c672d1e504cdb48d0e9e
Technology to "duplicate" information developed more quickly and made it possible to "carry a voice to many people" (e.g., radio in the 1930s).
But it couldn't be reversed, there was a flood of information.
In the 2020s, the development of LLM technology made it possible to "summarize" and convey information
What is [digital democracy?
Digital democracy has nothing to do with voting and majority rule
Better to think of it as "a mechanism to improve communication at large and aid in group decision making"
Polls were invented as a way to "summarize people's opinions" at a time when "summary" technology was poor.
The system works like this: "Put a piece of paper with names written in a box, choose people by majority vote, and the person chosen speaks on behalf of the person chosen."
Advances in LLM are enabling better "summaries of people's opinions"
However, it would be difficult to erase and rebuild the current "social system" that is built on "paper and box voting", so it is realistic to gradually improve it from the easiest places.
This idea would be "We need to amend the Public Offices Election Law to elect politicians by digital voting -" but that's not "improving where it's easy to do." Participatory budgeting in Suginami Ward already determines the use of a portion of the budget through Internet voting.
The way a group makes decisions is not just by electing politicians.
What is [Plurality?
Social movement promoted by former Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang and others Book by Audrey Tang and Glen Weyl out 5/20
⿻數位 Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy
Japanese: ⿻數位 Plurality: Collaborative Technology and the Future of Democracy
https://gyazo.com/1778594b1d609d53004799b20872cf33
I am actually a Contributor.
Japanese version is being translated by Hiroo Yamagata, who has finished translating up to chapter 6.
CC0 so you can read everything online and ask questions.
To be published by Cybozu Style Books by the end of the year.
Audrey plans to tour the world to promote Plurality
References.
Probably the most detailed summary of concepts around Talk to the City in Japan at this time.
The reason why I think so is because I was asking my friend from Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs to write this article, and he introduced me to the developer as the leading expert in Japan.
I'm writing this after knowing a lot of information, including information that hasn't been made public.
Audrey Tang's talk at Plurality Seoul on 2023-12 (with Japanese subtitles)
https://youtu.be/4J9v-j995LU
Talking about Talk to the City
Trailer for Audrey Tang's documentary film [Good Enough Ancestor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqyxvyh69cU&t=8s
He also discusses the Democracy Update, released on 5/20.
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