Aviv Ovadya: Democratic Infrastructure for the Age of AI | Intelligence at the Frontier 2026

Sat, May 2, 2026, 12:00 AM

AI is advancing exponentially. Democratic systems are not. Aviv Ovadya is trying to close that gap before it becomes irreversible. Aviv, CEO of the AI and Democracy Foundation and research director at Metagov, makes the case for deliberative processes as core infrastructure for governing AI. Citizen assemblies and similar mechanisms have now been run thousands of times around the world, including feeding into EU policymaking several times a year. They are faster to spin up than elections, easier to iterate on, and designed to cut through the adversarial incentives that corrupt traditional political processes. His argument is that the democratic innovation space is massively underfunded relative to AI, crypto and other domains, and that a targeted ARPA-style deployment of resources across key capability gaps could make rapid progress. Speaker: Aviv Ovadya (AI and Democracy Foundation) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io Note: This recording was captured with technical limitations on Day 1. We apologize for any audio quality issues and appreciate your patience.