Personal Deliberation Partner

What

Personalized chatbot available to each participant before, during, and after deliberative processes, designed to guide them through the process, ask probing questions, provide relevant information, and help participants explore their own thoughts and understand diverse perspectives.

Why

Enable deeper self-reflection ↑, increase openness to challenging ideas ↑, accelerate trust-building ↑, more effective and efficient group deliberation time ↑, improved participant capabilities ↑

Problem Definition

Participants in complex deliberations often have ideas or thoughts they want to explore beyond scheduled group discussions, which are limited by time, others’ priorities, and social dynamics. Significant process time is spent creating safe spaces for honest dialogue and preparing participants to engage with challenging topics. Without personal reflection support, participants enter sessions less prepared for deep deliberation, and valuable insights remain unexplored. Individual context needs and reflection opportunities are constrained to group settings where not all personal exploration is appropriate or possible.

Definition of Success

Effectively help participants navigate materials, improve deliberation skills, and introduce diverse viewpoints for <$100/participant. For a Citizens’ Assembly, save ~6 hours of session time (worth tens of thousands in participant hours) by improving asynchronous context. Achieve measurable increases in participant readiness, self-reported understanding, and quality of contributions.

Requirements

• Discussion capabilities: tutor-like questioning and learning methodologies; create space for change of mind; point-of-view roleplay for perspective-taking; cultural sensitivity adjustments; and context awareness of participant’s journey.
• Technical Integration: upload multiple file and media types for context; process live deliberation data; and connect to recording/transcription devices.
• Challenges: participants are prone to trusting or being led by LLMs. Safeguards will need to ensure that opinion change is self-directed.

Existing Limitations

Currently, participants rely solely on provided materials and group discussions for reflection. Pre-process preparation is limited to reading materials that may prompt some self-reflection but lacks interactive exploration. During processes, reflection is constrained to breakout groups where time is shared, topics are predetermined, and social dynamics may inhibit personal exploration. No existing tools provide personalized, AI-powered deliberation support - this represents a new category of deliberation technology.

Milestones

1. CustomGPT with basic context and questioning prompts.
2. Specialized fine-tuned model with easy context upload portal.
3. Fully integrated system with real-time awareness of participant’s deliberation journey.

Starting Points

1. Develop customGPT prototype for early efficacy testing.
2. Partner with upcoming deliberative processes for A/B testing (with/without AI partner).
3. Collaborate with deliberation practitioners to define best-practice questioning approaches.
4. Research existing coaching and Socratic dialogue methodologies for AI implementation.