Who should decide the principles an AI assistant follows? Its developer has an unavoidable role, but affected people have knowledge and interests that an internal team cannot fully represent.
In a 2023 experiment, Anthropic and the Collective Intelligence Project invited roughly 1,000 Americans to contribute to an AI constitution using Polis. The project then explored training a model against publicly informed principles. It is a concrete example of public participation entering model development, not proof that all representation or alignment problems were solved.
Input is only the beginning
Participants need to know which decisions are open, what constraints apply, and how their input will be used. A project should explain how it recruits people, moderates contributions, resolves conflicts, and turns discussion into a final decision.
A poll can reveal preferences. It cannot establish a factual claim merely by counting votes. It also cannot speak for people who never had a realistic chance to participate.
Design for a meaningful response
A small community can start with a transparent proposal process. Ask people to describe one desired behavior and one situation where it might fail. Group related suggestions. Invite counterexamples. Publish a decision log that connects accepted changes to the concerns behind them.
For rejected suggestions, explain the reason: conflict with a protection, lack of evidence, technical limitations, or a tradeoff the organizer chose. “We listened” is not enough if participants cannot see what happened.
Protect the conditions for disagreement
Offer accessible language, time to reflect, and a way to contribute without public exposure. Separate popularity from authority. Keep a record of unresolved concerns and a mechanism to revisit the decision when new evidence appears.
This is where a DEO can add structure: defined participation rights, funded review work, and shared authority over a bounded decision. Start small enough that the promised influence is real.
Primary source: Collective Constitutional AI. Related tools: Decidim and Polis.
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