Marthe joined the debate on Democracy and Digitalisation in front of about 300 EESC members and members of other EU institutions. She presented Make.org’s position on handling technology in our societies, where it shall serve democracy and encourage citizens to shape public action. Addressing threats and challenges brought by AI, Marthe presented to the EESC members our Democratic Shield initiative that sets out measures on electoral integrity and democratic participation.  

Furthermore, she underlined the need to make AI work in democracies’ favour, enabling large-scale citizen participation, structuring citizen’s contributions or detecting disinformation. Marthe also highlighted the need for well-designed algorithms which fix biases. Ultimately, Marthe highlighted the need for wide cooperation of actors that shape the AI today.

Introduced by EESC President Oliver Röpke, other speakers and experts - MEP Brando Benifei (co-rapporteur of the AI Act), Iverna McGowan (Tech & Human Rights Advisor at UN OHCHR), Udbhav Tiwari (Vice-President of Signal Foundation) and Alina Radu (Director of Moldovan investigative newspaper 'Ziarul de Gardă') - discussed the synergies and challenges relating to democracy in digital policies in the European Union from a viewpoint of diverse actors. Their insights of the recurring issues were greatly enlightening. It allowed the audience to consider yet another perspective which needs to be considered in tackling the issues of AI, digital threats and safeguarding our democracy.

The discussions are also a follow-up of the AI Action Summit that recently took place in Paris and whose Welcoming Event on AI and Democracy was organised by Make.org.

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Discover our work on the Democratic Shield initiative and our policy recommendations 

Check the AI for Democracy - Democratic Commons Programme - initiative to put AI at the service of democracy

See the Worldwide Alliance for AI and Democracy - initiative uniting key actors driving concrete actions to enhance democratic resilience