A civic assembly of 29 residents just spent three weekends wrestling with one of the thorniest questions in local government: how should officials use AI and should they use it at all? Today on the podcast, host Jane C. Hu talks with KNKX reporter Nate Sanford and assembly participant Dhruv Raithatha about what it’s actually like to build consensus with strangers.

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Barrett & Greene Inc -- Many cities and counties have a sincere desire to learn more about what their residents feel about potential policies. One traditional, and common, way of doing this is through council meetings that are open to the public, which often attract the same small group of people who have the time and inclination to focus on the topic being discussed.

These sessions are frequently made up of an hour or two of council business, followed by people standing at a microphone to talk for three minutes, just at a time when everyone on the dais is worn out.

But there’s a far better system than that, which has gained traction around the world, and is finally coming to the United States. The approach uses Civic Assemblies, which bring in a randomly-selected, broadly representative group of people, who are involved in a process that includes being educated about the topic at hand, discussing potential approaches and finally creating a series of recommendations to advise their elected and appointed leaders. 

These have become particularly popular in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Latin America (notably Brazil), some of which get as high as 15 percent of the mixture of people invited to participate from a wide variety of demographic groups. 

Entities in the United States are just beginning to use this potentially powerful technique; the largest of which is Snohomish County, Washington, which has a population of over 870,000 and forms part of the Seattle Metropolitan Area. Their list of recommendations was put together on June 6 and 7. 

Snohomish County’s civic assembly was organized by Civic Genius, which used to be an independent organization, then came under the National Civic League umbrella in late 2024. The county was considering entering the brave new world of Artificial Intelligence and leaders there wanted to get a good sense of what the public really thought was important before jumping headlong into the unknown.

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly evolving, and many local governments are still struggling to catch up and figure out how — or if — they should be using it. In Snohomish County, local leaders decided to try an experiment.

They convened what’s known as a “civic assembly” of 29 randomly selected county residents to deliberate on AI and come up with policy recommendations.

The idea was prompted in part by a series of articles published by Cascade PBS and KNKX last summer. Using thousands of pages of chatlogs obtained through public records requests, we reported on how city officials in Everett had experimented with AI tools like ChatGPT for a variety of tasks.

That reporting raised questions about transparency. It also caught the eye of local leaders in Snohomish County.

Cascade PBS -- We'll tell you about the recommendations from the "civic assembly," and what happens next.

Cascade PBS -- Among their suggestions: the county should create an Artificial Intelligence advisory board.

Cascade PBS -- Citizens grapple with how Snohomish County should use AI

Cascade PBS -- Asking citizens how they want government to handle AI use

Cascade PBS -- Randomly selected county residents deliberated on AI use and came up with policy recommendations.

Seattle Times — We spend a lot of time scolding Americans for failing at their civic duty. Everyone should be speaking at town halls, voting in every election and setting daily reminders to call their elected representatives. This isn’t bad advice, of course, but it may not persuade someone who has ever considered going to a town hall where the outcome seemed preordained, voted for a candidate who seemed merely the least bad or received a canned email reply from a government official. We need more innovative civic advice than “do more of what isn’t working.”

Right now, Snohomish County is showing us what the next era of civic innovation looks like with the Snohomish County Civic Assembly. The assembly brings together a randomly selected, demographically representative group of residents to advise the county council on government use of artificial intelligence. Over three weekends in May and June, the group discussed shared values, heard from subject matter experts and deliberated on different policy approaches. This past weekend, the assembly continued refining its proposals and finalized a set of recommendations for the county council, the culmination of roughly 40 hours of work.

My Edmonds News — Several dozen randomly selected Snohomish County residents just wrapped up three solid weekends learning about artificial intelligence (AI) from national and local experts, and public and private entities. The goal was to provide specific, citizen-informed direction for Snohomish County government in how they use AI in government processes, programs, communications and more.

Everett Herald — It’s maybe both ironic and fitting that Snohomish County — in seeking guidance on how 21st-century artificial intelligence tools might be used in helping to manage the county — will turn to an ancient process of democratic rule-making: a civic assembly.

Without going to the extremes of Grecian tunics and stone seats in an amphitheater, later this year an assembly of about 40 county residents will gather for a series of meetings to hear from experts, deliberate on the issues and draft recommendations regarding the county’s use of AI for consideration by the Snohomish County Council; a robots’ rules of order, if you will.