AI Transforms Civic Engagement in Kentucky Town Hall
In a pioneering move earlier this year, Warren County, Kentucky, harnessed artificial intelligence to host what its officials describe as the largest virtual town hall in American history, engaging nearly 8,000 residents over the course of a month. This ambitious undertaking in Bowling Green, the state’s third-largest city, was driven by the urgent need to prepare for a projected significant population surge by 2050, necessitating comprehensive community input on future development.
Traditional methods of civic engagement often fall short. Conventional town hall meetings typically draw small, self-selected audiences whose strong opinions may not accurately reflect the broader community. Conversely, large-scale online surveys, while capable of gathering vast amounts of data, often yield datasets too unwieldy for human officials and volunteers to sift through effectively. Bowling Green county officials circumvented these challenges by entrusting the data analysis to AI. The result was remarkable: approximately 10% of Bowling Green residents participated in the online survey, sharing their perspectives on desired policy changes. This voluminous input was then synthesized by an AI tool, culminating in a publicly accessible policy report.
“If I have a town hall meeting on these topics, 23 people show up,” Warren County Judge Executive Doug Gorman remarked to PBS News Hour. “What we just conducted was the largest town hall in America.”
The “Bowling Green Experiment” commenced in February with the launch of a dedicated website, developed with the assistance of a local strategy firm. Residents were invited to submit anonymous ideas using Pol.is, an open-source online polling platform known for its success in civic engagement initiatives globally, notably in Taiwan. The prompt was deliberately open-ended, asking participants to envision their community over the next quarter-century, with options to vote on others’ suggestions. Over 33 days, nearly 8,000 residents contributed more than a million interactions, generating approximately 4,000 unique ideas, ranging from calls for new museums and expanded pedestrian infrastructure to more green spaces.
Google’s Jigsaw, a technology incubator, utilized its AI tool, Sensemaker, to compile and analyze these responses. Sensemaker is designed to process large volumes of online conversations, categorize themes, and identify areas of agreement and disagreement to extract actionable insights. The analysis revealed a striking consensus: 2,370 ideas garnered at least 80% agreement among respondents. Among the most popular proposals were increasing the number of healthcare specialists within the city to reduce reliance on services an hour away in Nashville, repurposing vacant retail spaces, and expanding restaurant options on the city’s north side.
Crucially, the online survey proved effective in reaching demographics often excluded from traditional civic discourse, including politically disengaged individuals and those whose work schedules preclude attendance at in-person meetings. The platform’s multi-language support and automatic translation capabilities also facilitated participation from immigrant communities. Daniel Tarnagda, an immigrant from Burkina Faso and a local non-profit founder, emphasized this inclusivity, stating, “I knew that people want to be part of something. But if you don’t ask, you don’t know.” Volunteers are now working to translate these consensus ideas into concrete policy recommendations for county leadership by year-end, with Jigsaw estimating that the AI process saved the county an average of 28 work days.
The Bowling Green initiative served as Sensemaker’s first large-scale proof of concept. One of the most compelling findings was the extent of agreement discovered when ideas were anonymized and stripped of overt political identity. Yasmin Green, CEO of Jigsaw, observed, “When most of us don’t participate, then the people who do are usually the ones that have the strongest opinions, maybe the least well-informed, angriest, and then you start to have a caricatured idea of what the other side thinks and believes. So one of the most consequential things we could do with AI is to figure out how to help us stay in the conversation together.” Building on this success, Jigsaw recently announced a partnership with the Napolitan Institute, founded by pollster Scott Rasmussen, to explore national perspectives on America’s founding ideals and current trajectory, though this broader project aims for understanding rather than policy formulation.
Despite the promising outcomes, the integration of AI into local governance raises inherent concerns. While Bowling Green’s survey explicitly stated that “no personal information was captured, and no demographic data was stored,” future applications elsewhere may not adhere to such strict privacy protocols. AI systems are susceptible to data breaches, which could lead to sensitive political beliefs being exposed. Furthermore, the potential for creator bias to be embedded within algorithms remains a significant challenge. Recent research, for instance, indicated that Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot would consult his controversial opinions when responding to sensitive questions. Such biases could severely compromise the neutrality required for generating objective policy suggestions.
Nevertheless, if these critical concerns are adequately addressed, AI holds the transformative potential to revolutionize civic engagement. It could offer a viable pathway to transcend political polarization, fostering tangible change by creating spaces where even divided communities can discover surprising common ground, much like it did in Bowling Green.