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Pol.is - Open-Source Civic Deliberation Platform

reference
Wikipedia·en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol.is

Credibility Rating

3/5
Good(3)

Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.

Rating inherited from publication venue: Wikipedia

Relevant to AI governance discussions around scalable democratic input into AI development; Anthropic and OpenAI have both explored Polis as a mechanism for incorporating public values into model behavior and policy decisions.

Metadata

Importance: 52/100wiki pagereference

Summary

Pol.is (Polis) is open-source wiki survey software designed for large-scale group deliberation, using algorithms to surface areas of consensus rather than drive engagement or polarization. It has been notably used in Taiwan's vTaiwan process to inform national legislation, and has influenced projects like Twitter's Community Notes. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have explored it as a model for scalable democratic input into AI governance.

Key Points

  • •Polis surfaces consensus rather than maximizing engagement, making it a potential antidote to polarization in online discourse.
  • •Used in Taiwan's vTaiwan platform: 26 national tech issues discussed, 80% led to government action, credited with helping pass legislation.
  • •Influenced Twitter/X's Community Notes project and was consulted by OpenAI for scalable deliberation and by Anthropic for steering model behavior.
  • •Anonymous participation and no direct replies are design choices to reduce personal attacks and encourage honest opinion-sharing.
  • •Represents a civic technology model contrasted with authoritarian AI surveillance, empowering ordinary citizens over elites or special interests.

Cited by 1 page

PageTypeQuality
AI-Assisted DeliberationApproach63.0

Cached Content Preview

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Pol.is - Wikipedia 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 
 
 
 
 
 
 Open-source software 
 Polis Developer The Computational Democracy Project - a 501(c)(3) nonprofit Initial release October 13, 2012  ( 2012-10-13 ) [ 1 ] License AGPLv3 (open-source) Website https://pol.is Repository github .com /compdemocracy /polis 
 
 
 Polis (or Pol.is ) is wiki survey software designed for large group collaborations. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] As a civic technology , Polis allows people to share their opinions and ideas, and its algorithm is intended to elevate ideas that can facilitate better decision-making , [ 4 ] especially when there are lots of participants. [ 5 ] 

 Polis has been credited for assisting the passage of legislation in Taiwan . [ 4 ] [ 6 ] Pol.is has also been used in America, Canada, Singapore, [ 7 ] Philippines, [ 8 ] Finland, [ 9 ] Spain [ 10 ] and other governments around the world. [ 11 ] 

 
 History

 [ edit ] 
 Pol.is was founded by Colin Megill, Christopher Small, and Michael Bjorkegren after the Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring movements. [ 7 ] 

 In Taiwan, pol.is has been "one of the key parts" of vTaiwan's suite of open-source tools for its citizen engagement efforts arising out of the Sunflower Student Movement . [ 12 ] [ 4 ] vTaiwan claims that of the 26 national issues related to technology were discussed on the platform and 80% led to government action. [ 7 ] [ 12 ] Pol.is is also utilized by "Join," a national platform for online deliberation run by the Taiwanese government. [ 13 ] [ 14 ] 

 In 2022, Wired reported that Polis was an influence on the Community Notes project at Twitter . [ 15 ] 

 In 2023, Megill advised OpenAI on how to facilitate deliberation at scale in a way that was more efficient that Polis, which still required significant human labor and analysis at the time. He helped to award $1 million in grants to teams working on solving the problem of deliberation at scale. [ 16 ] In 2023, Anthropic was also exploring steering model behavior using Polis. [ 17 ] 

 How it works

 [ edit ] 
 Pol.is participants are anonymous and cannot reply directly to others’ posts, in an effort to avoid personal attacks for users. Its algorithms are designed not for engagement and scrolling, but to surface areas of agreement to better understand the nuances of a wide range of opinions. [ 9 ] Participants are prompted for ideas and vote on other participants’ ideas. [ 9 ] 

 Reception

 [ edit ] 
 Andrew Leonard , The Financial Times , and VentureBeat describe Pol.is as a possible antidote to the divisiveness of traditional internet discourse by gamifying consensus. [ 18 &#

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