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Robert Bjarnason

@robertbjarnason.bsky.social
27 followers 32 following 6 posts

President/CTO at Citizens Foundation helping governments and citizens make better decisions through open platforms and artificial intelligence.

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Reposted by Robert Bjarnason
⿻ Audrey Tang 唐鳳 @audreyt.org · 21/06/2025
Autocracy to the left of us, democracy to the right, #TaiwanCanHelp🇹🇼 depolarize anew. Navigating a fraught political landscape & finding uncommon ground is possible with pro-social media & collective care.☀️ Read on🔽 & let's #FreeTheFuture🖖 — together! www.fastcompany.com/91339114/aud...
fastcompany.com
Audrey Tang wants to save democracy with ‘pro-social’ media
A senior fellow at the safer tech nonprofit Project Liberty Institute, Audrey Tang builds tools to fight political polarization.
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Beth Simone Noveck @bethnoveck.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
🛠️ We've built extraordinary tools but aren't using them to fix our democratic institutions. What if we treated democracy like cancer or carbon? 🤔 My new @fastcompany.com piece on how AI can strengthen democracy, modernize government @stateofnewjersey.bsky.social www.fastcompany.com/91351325/the...
fastcompany.com
The debate over state-level AI bans misses the point
As federal lawmakers consider limits, state leaders are focusing on how artificial intelligence can strengthen democracy, improve public services, and modernize government.
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Reposted by Robert Bjarnason
The Burnes Center for Social Change @burnescenter.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
📰 Don't miss this week's Reboot Democracy News That Caught Our Eye! rebootdemocracy.ai/newsthatcaug...
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The GovLab @thegovlab.org · 26/03/2025
🇧🇷 Brazil invites citizens into every stage of lawmaking: proposing bills, questioning witnesses, learning, and voting. AI can deepen this democratic innovation. More by Luis Kimaid, @bethnoveck.bsky.social, Alisson Bruno Dias De Queiroz, and Dane Gambrell rebootdemocracy.ai/blog/ai-lawm...
rebootdemocracy.ai
RebootDemocracy.AI
RebootDemocracy.AI - We believe that artificial intelligence can and should be harnessed to strengthen participatory democracy. Done well, participation and engagement lead to 1. Better governance 2...
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
New controlled study of AI voice mode on mental health finds complex results: GPT-4 with an empathetic voice reduced loneliness, but heavier users, and especially when use was combined with a more neutral voice or those with particular personalities, had multiple negative impacts on users.
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⿻ Audrey Tang 唐鳳 @audreyt.org · 22/03/2025
Democracy isn’t something you have, it's something you practice — daily. 🔄 @jasmine.bsky.social beautifully captures Taiwan’s civic heartbeat and why active participation matters now more than ever. 🌻 jasmi.news/p/taiwan-2025
jasmi.news
garbage in, garbage out
notes on Taiwan, the US, and civic culture
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TechCrunch @techcrunch.com · 18/03/2025
Nvidia announces Groot N1, a foundation model for humanoid robotics
tcrn.ch
Nvidia announces Groot N1, a foundation model for humanoid robotics
Nvidia is releasing what it’s calling an AI foundation model for humanoid robotics. Announced at GTC 2025, the model, dubbed Groot N1, is a “generalist” model, trained on both synthetic and real data. Nvidia claims that Groot N1 features a “dual system…
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Using Gemini Flash Experimental to ruin art by adding ice cream.
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Beth Simone Noveck @bethnoveck.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
AI isn't a tech fad for local gov, writes @burnescenter.bsky.social fellow Neil Kleiman @thegovlab.org —it's a game-changer that can triple productivity and transform resident engagement. But realizing the benefits requires culture change and training. #GovTech #AI rebootdemocracy.ai/blog/ai-will...
rebootdemocracy.ai
RebootDemocracy.AI Blog | AI Will Completely Transform Local Government in the Next 10 Years— If We Embrace It Effectively
AI will transform local government. To ensure these changes improve service delivery, we need to invest in training and culture change in local government.
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Reposted by Robert Bjarnason
Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
I wrote about "vibeworking" and what it means to be an expert in a world where you can create things by just asking for them... until you hit the limits of what AI systems can do. I also vibecoded my own little 3D town creation/ firetruck game in four prompts. www.oneusefulthing.org/p/speaking-t...
oneusefulthing.org
Speaking things into existence
Expertise in a vibe-filled world of work
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Robert Bjarnason @robertbjarnason.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Our Your Priorities platform, jointly developed by the Citizens Foundation and Evoly.ai has received top ratings in the People Powered 2025 Platform ratings! 🚀 Our new AI Workflow Engine brings Collective (👥) & Artificial (🤖) Intelligence together for better decisions.
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Reposted by Robert Bjarnason
People Powered @peoplepowered.org · 19/02/2025
🏆 The Best Civic Tech & Digital Participation Tools of 2025! We've just launched People Powered’s 2025 Digital Participation Tool Ratings! Find the top tools for your program. www.peoplepowered.org/news-content... #DigitalDemocracy #CivicTech #ParticipationTools #AIinGovernance #PeoplePowered
peoplepowered.org
Here are the best digital participation tools of 2025 — People Powered
Find the best tool for your digital participation program today!
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Thorsten Sterk @thorstensterk.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
„To save the foundations of liberal democracy, we may need to rediscover its appeal to the ordinary citizen. If it’s something about the way politics is practised that citizens distrust, perhaps those politics need to change.“
theconversation.com
Trust in politics is in long-term decline around the world – new research
Since 1990, trust in government has been declining in democratic countries across the world.
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Reposted by Robert Bjarnason
Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
wrote about Deep Research, which is very, very good at doing nuanced and complex research. It is also the first narrow agent that can do sophisticated and likely quite economically valuable work, which tells us something important about the future. open.substack.com/pub/oneusefu...
open.substack.com
The End of Search, The Beginning of Research
The first narrow agents are here
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Two order of magnitude cost reduction in a month for reasoning models from OpenAI (also means large reduction in energy used to run the model)
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Beth Simone Noveck @bethnoveck.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
Reboot Democracy in the Age of AI News That Caught Our Eye #40: This week Cong rules package on AI and House operations. New paper on LLMs and democratic deliberation. Trump AI policy and more stories on AI, democracy and gov rebootdemocracy.ai/blog/news-th... @thegovlab.org
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
There has been a definite shift in recent weeks where insiders in the various AI labs are suggesting that very intelligent AIs are coming very soon. I wrote a bit about why this might be happening and what we can take away from their apparent confidence. www.oneusefulthing.org/p/prophecies...
oneusefulthing.org
Prophecies of the Flood
What to make of the statements of the AI labs?
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⿻ Audrey Tang 唐鳳 @audreyt.org · 07/01/2025
As we approach 2025, my greatest hope for AI is that it will enable prosocial platforms that promote empathy, understanding, and collaboration rather than division. www.deeplearning.ai/the-batch/ai...
deeplearning.ai
AI That Unites Us | AI News & Insights
As we approach 2025, my greatest hope for AI is that it will enable prosocial platforms that promote empathy, understanding, and collaboration...
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
Bluesky can be a fraught place to post about AI but it is worth noting that the buzz over o1 (& now o3) is not “hype.” We know o1 can actually do some very hard tasks (see my post) & o3 appears to represent a big further leap. They aren’t AGI, but will matter. www.oneusefulthing.org/p/what-just-...
oneusefulthing.org
What just happened
A transformative month rewrites the capabilities of AI
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Feels like the Dreadnought Moment for AI is coming When the HMS Dreadnought launched, she rendered all other warships obsolete. It was not one thing, but a mix of technologies combined into the right design that disrupted. The pieces for transformative AI applications are there, not assembled yet.
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The Burnes Center for Social Change @burnescenter.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
Did you miss last week's Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI lecture with Mayor San-Cheng Chang? He explored how AI can enhance citizen engagement, improve decision-making, and more. Discover his vision for a tech-driven democracy: youtube.com/live/OoZeyWPjHx...
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The Burnes Center for Social Change @burnescenter.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Burnes Center Director @bethnoveck.bsky.social is named to @apolitical.bsky.social's Government AI 100 list! Beth’s work is a testament to how democracy can be reimagined by leveraging AI. apolitical.co/list/en/gove... @northeasternu.bsky.social
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Gunnar Grímsson @gunnargrimsson.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Ég kýs. Use it or lose it.
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-best-a...
oneusefulthing.org
The Best Available Human Standard
What are the imperatives of the upside?
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Of course prompt engineering (especially iteration) is essential for repeated or scaled use. It just isnt that valuable for most people most of the time. www.oneusefulthing.org/p/getting-st...
oneusefulthing.org
Getting started with AI: Good enough prompting
Don't make this hard
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Reposted by Robert Bjarnason
⿻ Audrey Tang 唐鳳 @audreyt.org · 25/11/2024
Building resilient infrastructure is central to #GlobalGoals 🇺🇳 #SDG9. It’s also a common challenge tailored to the #TaiwanModel’s🇹🇼 co-creation & inclusivity. Genuinely great to lend @newamerica.bsky.social a hand.🤝 Read on & let’s #FreeTheFuture🖖— together! www.newamerica.org/digital-impa...
newamerica.org
Infrastructure for the Digital Age: Building a Safer, More Resilient Digital Ecosystem in the United States and Beyond
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
This may sound odd, but game-based benchmarks are some of the most useful for AI, since we have human scores and they require reasoning, planning & vision The hardest of all is Nethack. No AI is close, and I suspect that an AI that can fairly win/ascend would need to be AGI-ish. Paper: balrogai.com
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Tim Rocktäschel @handle.invalid · 22/11/2024
Excited to announce "BALROG: a Benchmark for Agentic LLM and VLM Reasoning On Games" led b UCL DARK's @dpaglieri.bsky.social! Douwe Kiela plot below is maybe the scariest for AI progress — LLM benchmarks are saturating at an accelerating rate. BALROG to the rescue. This will keep us busy for years.
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Robert Bjarnason @robertbjarnason.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Experimenting with #MidJourney and #RunwayML #Gen3 to create a music video for a friend! 🎥 Check it out the new 4K version. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RK3...
youtube.com
RICHARD SCOBIE -- LITTLE MAN (4K VERSION)
YouTube video by Richard Scobie Official
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Reposted by Robert Bjarnason
Beth Simone Noveck @bethnoveck.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Upgrading the United States’ traditional infrastructure remains an area of bipartisan agreement. There is also an urgent need to transform our digital infrastructure in the public interest. Learn more from @newamerica.bsky.social report on digital public infrastructure: bit.ly/40T0m1D
bit.ly
Infrastructure for the Digital Age: Building a Safer, More Resilient Digital Ecosystem in the United States and Beyond
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Robert Bjarnason @robertbjarnason.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Experimenting with #MidJourney and #RunwayML #Gen3 to create a music video for a friend! 🎥 Check it out! www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzM6...
youtube.com
RICHARD SCOBIE -- LITTLE MAN
YouTube video by Richard Scobie Official
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Reposted by Robert Bjarnason
Beth Simone Noveck @bethnoveck.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Frank McCourt joined me @burnescenter.bsky.social this week for a conversation on what’s wrong with #BigTech, his hope to acquire #TikTok and restore data ownership and autonomy to Netizens. Watch the full conversation and read my summary on rebootdemocracy.ai @nuglobalnews.bsky.social
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Beth Simone Noveck @bethnoveck.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
In @tvanderark @Getting_Smart post he talks about the value of @Northeastern @BurnesCenter AI for Impact program, connecting learners to work that matters, building agency...with AI-powered problem solving and difference-making." www.gettingsmart.com/2024/11/19/i...
gettingsmart.com
Impact Projects at Northeastern University
Engaging students in impact-driven projects is one of the most effective ways to cultivate valuable skills while developing what Charles Fadel refers to as the key Drivers of learning: Motivation, Ide...
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Beth Simone Noveck @bethnoveck.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Join me today at 5 pm ET when I interview Frank McCourt of Project Liberty as part of the Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI Lecture Series as we discuss his bid for TikTok, platforms like @bsky.app and the future of the Internet. Sign up here: rebootdemocracy.ai
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Robert Bjarnason @robertbjarnason.bsky.social · 04/10/2023
Check out our new open source project. Utilizing our top-rated citizen engagement solutions, over 30 GPT-4 agent types, and advanced genetic algorithms, Policy Synth represents a distinctive effort to intertwine human insights with AI.
github.com
GitHub - CitizensFoundation/policy-synth: Bringing together the best of collective and artificial in...
Bringing together the best of collective and artificial intelligence. A unique effort to intertwine human insights and artificial intelligence to grapple with complex policy dilemmas. - GitHub - C...
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Robert Bjarnason @robertbjarnason.bsky.social · 04/10/2023
Speaking at this online event 26. October. How can we leverage the power of artificial intelligence to reimagine democracy? rebootdemocracy.ai/events
rebootdemocracy.ai
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Robert Bjarnason @robertbjarnason.bsky.social · 01/10/2023
#dalle3 prompt: Fashion photograph of a techno parrot dancing.
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