Democracy, AI, and What We Owe
When I’m on the road, I always find a route that grounds me. In Ottawa, I ran past the Supreme Court. The Library and Archives. Parliament Hill. The oldest Business Club in the nation. The Hill Times.
Every one of those institutions represents a counterbalancing force. Courts that check power. Archives that preserve memory. Media that holds us accountable. Business that drives innovation and creation. Parliament where the messy work of democracy happens.
AI poses the single biggest opportunity and threat to those institutions. Digitization is reshaping how we consume information, how media holds us accountable, how we even understand truth.
Structurally, the digitization of how we inform ourselves, govern ourselves, and hold each other accountable is the defining transformation of our time. And it doesn’t care about democratic values unless we build those values in.
We can disagree on (small p) politics and policies. We should. But we should agree that the fabric of democracy – the checks, the balances, the accountability – is worth preserving.
I come from a family that moved from Scotland to a New Brunswick farm. My great grandfather’s farm provided the backing for my grandfather to start a roofing company where he lifted the trajectory of our family off a subsistence living. With the support of my grandparents, my dad was the first in our family to graduate from university (I was the second). Blue collar to white collar. Over fifty years, the opportunity that a functioning democracy provided changed everything for us.
I know what these institutions have done for my family. Not without problems. Not without challenge. Certainly not perfectly.
If we want AI to extend that kind of opportunity rather than concentrate power in fewer hands, we have to be intentional.
Leaders can’t outsource this to the tech. We need to understand it. Read more. Think harder. Rise above the emotively charged doomloop that dominates the 24/7 news cycle and most social media platforms.
AI can enable us. It can’t direct us.
That’s still our job.
We need more intentional integration and less reckless adoption.
Democracy gave my family its shot. I want AI to extend that opportunity – not erode it.
