Building common ground for the common good.

Dear Subscriber First Name,

This year will always remain firm in our memory. It was the year we took a bold leap to start this new non-profit organization: Common Good AI. 

The last 12 months have shown the power of navigating challenges together, as we used adaptive thinking to guide our way. We established Common Good AI because we see tremendous opportunities to foster community-based problem solving using digital collaboration at scale. As we look across 2024 and now forward to 2025, we are further emboldened that our vision to use new tools to promote inclusive civic engagement can happen if we continue to adapt and solve problems together. 

In this newsletter, we share another exciting case study using the CrowdSmart tool, as well as a white paper that explains the technology ‘under the hood’. We also include recently published analysis on the ‘digital public square’ and prospects and risks for shifting the paradigm to conversations at scale, informed by 70 civil society and tech experts. 

Thank you to everyone who supported our work this year. You made this a reality that we will continue to pursue in 2025.

Sincerely,

Victoria Stanski, Managing Director

Founders John Seely Brown, John Clippinger, John Cordier,

Tom Kehler, and Kim Polese

Case Study: Thematic Discussion Group to inform the UN Summit of the Future

A group of thinkers in the Sustainable Development Goals Thought Leaders Circle (SDG TLC)  were inspired by United Nations’ (UN) General-Secretary António Guterres’ call for “deep and rapid transformation.” The group wanted to leverage the UN and member states’ openness to new ways of working to propose radically new approaches. In early 2024, members of the SDG TLC formed a working group to identify the conversations that needed to take place in order to create rapid change.

We document how the Science, Technology, and Innovation thematic dialogue group used CrowdSmart technology to accelerate the group ideation—while reducing the barriers and fears that prevent people from trying new technology.

White Paper: Explaining the technology’s architecture

Common Good AI uses multiple digital tool to promote civic engagement and community-level problem solving. In 2025, we anticipate pilot projects with non-profit organizations to foster greater learning on how to best apply the digital tool to community-level engagements, which will be documented in a series of case studies. The CrowdSmart system was originally tested on predicting business start-up momentum, so we use that as an example to explain the architecture. 

Recent Analysis: AI and the Future of Digital Public Squares

Large language models (LLMs) hold major potential to make online spaces more collaborative and inclusive. This optimism inspired a discussion in April 2024 led by Google’s Jigsaw Unit, which brought together experts from nearly 20 organizations spanning academia, government, civil society, and tech. With input from 50 civil society experts and technologists, the analysis ‘AI and the Future of Digital Public Squares' explores how LLMs can enhance digital public deliberation, highlights risks to address, and proposes directions for future research. It cites various tools adopted by Common Good AI.

Thank you for launching with us!

We wish you a restful holiday season—and a chance to pause and reflect on the bigger perspective of what you accomplished and what is ahead. There is big bold work to do together! If you have new ideas, funding opportunities, research, or resources to share with us, please email info@commongoodai.org.