The future must be actively negotiated and shaped - and in a democratic way. For the Foundation for Technology Assessment, the Dezentrum developed three future scenarios for a digital democracy in the year 2050. In a participatory and interdisciplinary process, three short stories were created, each illustrated by a speculative object.
Three digital futures of democracy 2050
Digitalisation is changing our lives. How does this affect our democracy? How digital should the democracy of the future be?
In order to proactively work towards a desirable future, we need a shared vision of it as a society. Speculating about desirable futures is therefore an important part of participation and thus part of democracy. This is precisely where our study comes in. What kind of (digital) future do we actually want? The result is three future scenarios for a (digital) democracy in 2050, each told through a short story and a speculative artefact.
Three art objects are to open up the horizon of possibilities of the digital future. [...] The question of whether democracy needs "electronic frippery" at all does not help. The democracy of the future will be more digital - anything else is hard to imagine. This makes it all the more important to face up to the normative questions.
The rule of thumb is in the hacker and developer community "Commonity" and simulates a coin toss - an efficient and transparent decision rule. It is the most councillor in the "Algogremium", which adheres to the principle of "algorithm diversity" and models Commonity's decentralised and open-source-based platform. The artefact was created in its infancy, in the year 2039. Instead of profit maximisation, they focus on the commons and community. Digital platforms, which have long been a new form of public sphere, should also be democratically organised. The rule of thumb stands for their mission to create an internet of the commons that is transparent and impartial.
Thus, in 2050, Commonity will become a serious competitor to "Amago", the merger of Amazon and Google. Is the randomness of a coin toss exactly what we need in an optimised and thoroughly algorithmised digital world? A ray of light on the horizon in a future where the state has failed to limit the power of the technology oligopolies and where citizens are treated as mere data subjects?
In an evidence room in the year 2050 lies a shrink-wrapped mushroom risotto. A piece of evidence confiscated by the police. The total revision of the Swiss constitution in 2041 makes it possible to enact laws within hours. The process of consultation and introduction of the new laws in the "connected democracy" is now moving very quickly. Too fast, for once.
Actually, the "Bill to extend the legal status of mycorrhiza" aimed to better protect the needs of flora and fauna. But there was a mistake in the "crowdwriting", and before the error could be discovered, the bill was adopted. With disastrous consequences: The consumption of edible mushrooms becomes a criminal offence. Countless edible mushrooms are then confiscated from private households as evidence.
What happens to little Esra, who was about to eat her risotto ai funghi porcini? How do you find the balance between the slow-grinding mills of democracy and the ever-faster digital world?
Obliviscis is a mind-altering pill that enables people to make fact-based decisions for the common good. It enables people to abstract from their own particular interests and look objectively at the world through ego dissociation. At least that is what they say. For too long, people failed to put a stop to the confrontational tone on digital platforms, which gradually spilled over into other (offline) spheres of society. A negative spiral of provocation and escalation followed. Solidarity and social cohesion have become mere empty words.
Is Obliviscis the answer to the question of how a polarised and radicalised society can find its way back to democratic values? In 2050, the first pilot study on this will run. Which of the young "recruits" of Service Citoyenes will be the first to come forward to join the study? Is a mind-altering drug really the drug of choice for citizens of the future to learn how democracy works?
Accompanied by a palatable short story, a vacuum-packed mushroom risotto, a coin toss and a red pill outline different paths. Sometimes the complete dominance of the merged tech giants lurks there. Or the phantasm of completely rational and altruistic thinking beckons. The fact that mushrooms also play a role fits the zeitgeist.
Florian Wüstholz
WOZ "Where to with Democracy?"
Obliviscis at PolitForum Bern (Photo: Susanne Goldschmid)
Die Artefakte waren 2021 in der Ausstellung «Digitale Demokratie. Eine interaktive Reise in die politische Zukunft» im PolitForum Bern ausgestellt und 2022 im Kornhaus Forum in «Sammeln, Reden, Entscheiden. Orte der Demokratie» zu sehen. Aktuell sind sie Teil der Dauerausstellung des PolitForums Bern.
Scenario technique and speculative design as methodology
The three scenarios are the result of a participatory and creative process that combines two speculative methodological approaches. Thus, in a first phase of the project, the scenario technique, a proven instrument of futurology, was used, and in the second phase, speculative design, a creative and experimental research approach, was used. Both methods start from the same basic assumption: They understand the future as a spectrum that encompasses many possible futures.
Digital democracy is what we make of it. Only then it might suddenly no longer be a democracy.
GfS Bern
In "Digitisation of Swiss Democracy
In Phase I, future visions for a digital democracy were developed with the involvement of interdisciplinary experts and everyday life professionals. These are based on a careful influence analysis that takes up current development trends and extrapolates them systematically and transparently into the future. On this basis, three topics or areas of tension were identified that shape the relationship between democracy and digitalisation: Firstly, the role of the state vis-à-vis increasingly powerful technology companies (state vs. big tech), secondly, the polarisation and radicalisation tendencies of social discourse on digital platforms (deliberation vs. confrontation), and thirdly, the potential exclusion of the "socially marginalised" from the political system (inclusion vs. exclusion), which threatens social cohesion in the long term.
Is all this digitalisation forcing us into a completely new understanding of democracy?
Moritz Leuenberger
Former Federal Councillor
Based on these three areas of tension, three future scenarios for a digital democracy in the year 2050 were developed in phase II. The scenarios were finally brought into a narrative form with narrative-creative means. A short story was created for each scenario, which was translated into a speculative artefact in collaboration with the design agency Studio Porto. Speculative artefacts are objects that embody norms and values that contradict and question the present. By being decoupled from the present and the prevailing facts, they can discuss social possibilities in this way. As view and exhibition objects, they illustrate the scenarios and offer a low-threshold entry into a discussion. Complex and immaterial discourses around digitalisation and democracy thus become something very concrete and imaginable. In this respect, the work with the scenario technique and speculative design is a deliberately chosen discourse and mediation strategy: thanks to the combination of these two methods, the scenarios developed in Phase I can leave expert circles and be discussed and further developed by a broader public.
Press conference, SRF Tagesschau of 17.08.2021
The study "Scenarios on Democracy and Digitisation in Switzerland: A Participatory Future Experiment" is part of the TA-SWISS project Digitisation and Democracy, which includes two other sub-studies, namely by gfs.bern and the Dachverband Schweizer Jugendparlamente. The artefacts were created in collaboration with Studio Porto and photographed by Tobias Siebrecht.
