Supercooperation: The Future of AI for Democracy

AI’s progress opens up new possibilities for how societies deliberate, make decisions, and cooperate across differences. Realizing those possibilities is not automatic. Researchers at frontier AI labs have themselves noted that advanced AI could conversely shift the balance toward more concentrated power, while democratic institutions today are navigating real pressures from polarization and rapid technological change.

A growing body of work is exploring how AI can support collective deliberation, decision-making, and cooperation. These efforts often develop in parallel with, rather than in conversation with, both the practical realities of democratic practice and the longer-term governance questions raised by rapid AI progress.

This workshop, co-hosted by Foresight Institute and the Cooperative AI Foundation, brings together researchers, builders, and practitioners to connect these conversations and explore what it would take for AI to support stronger democratic institutions and the kind of collective decision-making the years ahead will require.

Focus Areas

Participants will work across three interconnected themes:

1. AI Tools for Collective Deliberation and Cooperation

How can AI help scale public deliberation, support collective decision-making, and facilitate cooperation on complex topics? We examine frontier technical approaches, what is becoming possible, and what remains hard.

2. Power Concentration and Governance Under Rapid AI Progress

What governance failures become possible as AI capabilities accelerate? We look at scenarios in which states, corporations, or AI systems come to dominate the global order, including pathways of gradual disempowerment, and ask what builders’ work needs to be robust against.

3. Democratic Practice on the Ground

What is actually working and what is failing in real democratic institutions today? We bring in practical knowledge from elections, civic engagement, and the defense of democratic norms, with attention to the critical events of the next one to two years.

Participants

Approximately 50 invited participants, including AI researchers and developers building tools for deliberation and cooperation, researchers focused on power concentration and gradual disempowerment, democracy practitioners working on the front lines of institutional resilience, and researchers from frontier AI labs.

Format

The workshop runs as a single full day, combining keynotes and structured breakout working sessions. The day is built to surface concrete collaborations rather than only exchange ideas, and concludes with a reception.

Why Attend

By participating in this workshop you’ll get:

• New insights connecting your work to adjacent communities you may not regularly interact with
• Lasting collaborations across the technical, governance, and practitioner divides
• A clearer view of how AI tools for democracy can be made robust against the most serious near and long-term risks
• A chance to shape how this rapidly forming field develops

Apply

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. We welcome AI researchers and developers, governance researchers, and democracy practitioners with demonstrated expertise or strong interest in this intersection.