Making Your Voice Heard w/ Tristan Williams & Felix de Simone

I am joined by Tristan Williams and Felix de Simone to discuss their work on the potential of constituent communication, specifically in the context of AI legislation. These two worked as part of an AI Safety Camp team to understand whether or not it would be useful for more people to be sharing their experiences, concerns, and opinions with their government representative (hint, it is).

Check out the blogpost on their findings, "Talking to Congress: Can constituents contacting their legislator influence policy?" and the tool they created!

• (01:53) - Introductions
• (04:04) - Starting the project
• (13:30) - Project overview
• (16:36) - Understanding constituent communication
• (28:50) - Literature review
• (35:52) - Phase 2
• (43:26) - Creating a tool for citizen engagement
• (50:16) - Crafting your message
• (59:40) - The game of advocacy
• (01:15:19) - Difficulties on the project
• (01:22:33) - Call to action
• (01:32:30) - Outro

Links to all articles/papers which are mentioned throughout the episode can be found below, in order of their appearance.

• AI Safety Camp
• Pause AI
• BlueDot Impact
• TIME article - There’s an AI Lobbying Frenzy in Washington. Big Tech Is Dominating
• Congressional Management Foundation study - Communicating with Congress: Perceptions of Citizen Advocacy on Capitol Hill
• Congressional Management Foundation study - The Future of Citizen Engagement: Rebuilding the Democratic Dialogue
• Tristan and Felix's blogpost - Talking to Congress: Can constituents contacting their legislator influence policy?
• Wired article - What It Takes to Make Congress Actually Listen
• American Journal of Polical Science article - Congressional Representation: Accountability from the Constituent’s Perspective
• Political Behavior article - Call Your Legislator: A Field Experimental Study of the Impact of a Constituency Mobilization Campaign on Legislative Voting
• Guided Track website
• The Tool
• Holistic AI global regulatory tracker
• White & Case global regulatory tracker
• Steptoe US AI legislation tracker
• Manatt US AIxHealth legislation tracker
• Issue One article - Big Tech Cozies Up to New Administration After Spending Record Sums on Lobbying Last Year
• Verfassungsblog article - BigTech’s Efforts to Derail the AI Act
• MIT Technology Review article - OpenAI has upped its lobbying efforts nearly sevenfold
• Open Secrets webpage - Issue Profile: Science & Technology
• Statista data - Leading lobbying spenders in the United States in 2024
• Global Justice Now report - Democracy at risk in Davos: new report exposes big tech lobbying and political interference
• Ipsos article - Where Americans stand on AI
• AP-NORC report - There Is Bipartisan Concern About the Use of AI in the 2024 Elections
• AI Action Summit report - International AI Safety Report
• YouGov article - Do Americans think AI will have a positive or negative impact on society?