AI can strengthen democracy—if we build it right

Democracy has always been shaped by technology. The voting booth changed how we cast ballots. Television changed what we knew. The internet changed how we organized. Now artificial intelligence is here, and the question isn't whether it will reshape democracy—it's how.

Bruce Schneier, a security technologist at Harvard and co-author of "Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship," sees this clearly. "AI can be used as a tool of surveillance, control, and propaganda," he says. "But it can also be used to resist all those things."

The difference comes down to choice—and power.

Democracy as an information problem

Schneier thinks of democracy as fundamentally an information system. It gathers what people want, processes that information, and decides what policies to pursue. AI, by design, processes information at scale. That makes it uniquely positioned to either strengthen or weaken how democracies actually work.

Consider what's already happening. In several countries, legislators are using AI to help draft laws—reducing their dependence on corporate lobbyists who traditionally shape the details. In others, local candidates are using AI tools to run campaigns without massive budgets, making it genuinely possible for ordinary people to compete in elections. Courts are using AI to reduce bias in sentencing. Governments are deploying it to make services fairer and faster.

"These aren't theoretical," Schneier emphasizes. "They're happening across the world right now."

But here's the catch: the same technology that can help a legislator write fairer laws can help an autocrat surveil a population. The same AI that empowers a grassroots candidate can amplify propaganda at scale. Technology itself is neutral. Power shapes how it gets used.

This is where regulation enters the picture. Schneier points to social media as a cautionary tale—a technology that could have developed many ways, but instead concentrated in the hands of a few corporations optimizing for engagement and profit. "The corporate environment shaping AI development will have a major influence on how it affects democracy," he says.

Europe and some U.S. states are beginning to regulate AI. But Schneier sees a more promising path: public AI. Imagine AI models built by governments, universities, and nonprofits rather than profit-driven tech companies. Switzerland recently released a public AI model—a small but significant proof that this approach is possible.

The stakes are clear. AI will reshape democracy one way or another. The question is whether we let that reshaping happen by default, or whether we choose it deliberately.