AI system named "Habermas Machine"

Michael Henry Tessler et al. have published a research article titled, "AI Can Help Humans Find Common Ground in Democratic Deliberation", in Science (386, eadq2852, 2024).

In the abstract, they state: 

"This research demonstrates the potential of AI to enhance collective deliberation by finding common ground among discussants with diverse views. The AI-mediated approach is time-efficient, fair, scalable, and outperforms human mediators on key dimensions. Rather than simply appealing to the majority, the Habermas Machine prominently incorporated dissenting voices into the group statements. AI-assisted deliberation is not without its risks, however; to ensure fair and inclusive debate, steps must be taken to ensure users are representative of the target population and are prepared to contribute in good faith. Under such conditions, AI may be leveraged to improve collective decision-making across various domains, from contract negotiations and conflict resolution to political discussions and citizens’ assemblies. The Habermas Machine offers a promising tool for finding agreement and promoting collective action in an increasingly divided world."

[* The human mediators that this AI system outperforms are not skilled professionals, but randomly selected participants.]

They also write: "We call this AI system the ‘Habermas Machine’ (HM), after the theorist Jürgen Habermas, who proposed that when rational people deliberate under idealized conditions, agreement will emerge in the public sphere," referencing J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (Beacon Press, 1981) [no page reference]. 

However, this book by Jürgen Habermas (published by Beacon Press in 1984) does not contain such a statement, nor does any other work by Habermas. It appears they may have named an AI system after a "theorist" whose work they have not directly consulted, drawing instead on general inspiration.

(1) Habermas does not believe that an "ideal discussion" on political issues will necessarily lead to agreement. Conflicts of interest or values will often need to be resolved by attempting to reach a fair compromise or through a majority decision. (And, of course, there are also conflicts where no solution can be found that is acceptable to all parties.) 

[Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics, 2023, p. 68, 89-93; Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 1996, pp. 165-167, 179].

(2) Habermas also argues that political agreement (or compromise) achievable in a deliberative democracy is not formed or reached in the public sphere but rather within political institutions—particularly in parliament. In the public sphere, outside these institutions, there is an exchange of opinions that is open, competitive, anarchistic, and ongoing: a continuous dissent. The deliberation in the public sphere results in a more or less informed pluralism of opinions.

[Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics, 2023, pp. 12-21, 70-71; Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 1996, pp. 185f, 371f].

(3) In the book by Habermas, which the research article refers to, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One, Habermas discusses a more philosophically technical concept of "discourse", distinguishing between three forms: theoretical discourses about the truth of propositions, practical discourses about the rightness of moral norms, and explicative discourses about the comprehensibility of symbolic expressions. Here, Habermas writes: 

"Only in theoretical, practical, and explicative discourse do the participants have to start from the (often counterfactual) presupposition that the conditions for an ideal speech situation are satisfied to a sufficient degree of approximation. I shall speak of “discourse” only when the meaning of the problematic validity claim conceptually forces participants to suppose that a rationally motivated agreement could in principle be achieved, whereby the phrase “in principle” expresses the idealizing proviso: if only the argumentation could be conducted openly enough and continued long enough." (p. 42, my emphasis).

That said, it is an interesting study.

Seyla Benhabib's 2024 Adorno Prize lecture

On September 11, 2024, Seyla Benhabib was awarded the Theodor W. Adorno Prize in Frankfurt, and she gave on that occasion a lecture on Adorno. An abridged English version of her lecture is now available at the Boston Review:

Against False Universals

Excerpts:

"Yet if the contemporary climate change crisis and the new Earth sciences lend a new relevance and poignancy to Adorno’s rejection of emancipation through social labor, and if, as I have argued, for Adorno, the task of philosophy is not to build totalizing systems but to engage in materialist interpretation and reveal fragmentary constellations, where does this leave social philosophy? As is well known, Adorno turns to aesthetic theory and the concept of the “naturally beautiful,” viewing it as an allegory and a cipher which intimates the utopian longing toward the non-identical. It would be too simple to criticize Adorno, as is often done, for turning away from the political and for reducing the emancipatory claims of critical theory to aesthetics. Adorno, who more consistently than other critical theorists saw the deficiencies of the Marxist paradigm, could offer no alternative to it. Yet there are elements in Adorno’s thinking, such as his critique of false universals and of identitarian thought, which may lead us beyond what Albrecht Wellmer, in his Adorno Prize lecture, called “the homelessness of the political” in Adorno’s theory." (....)

"The capacity for enlarged thought has atrophied in contemporary liberal democracies. Some will characterize the concept of an enlarged mentality as being based on a naïve humanism, and even on an arrogant humanitarianism which believes that enlightened liberal individuals can really understand the miseries of the homeless, the marginalized, the impoverished elderly, the sexually marginal. Others will argue that this concept is imperialistic in that its source is Kantian cosmopolitanism in the eighteenth century. (....)  Still others will argue that only members of affected groups, defined by race, ethnicity, sexuality, or gender, can take certain standpoints. Intergroup empathy is met with suspicion." (....)

"Surely these observations about democratic culture must be supplemented by a materialist critique. Adorno would be the first to point out that a society in which inequality grows, human work becomes increasingly degraded, and life in general becomes more precarious is not one in which we can lead a good life. Nor is such a situation compatible with sustaining a democratic culture. The dominance of the false universals of our time and the rigidity and bitterness of struggles over identitarian categories are surely a manifestation of economic injustice as well. The dominance of the false universals of our time and the rigidity and bitterness of struggles over identitarian categories are surely a manifestation of economic injustice as well. Having been forced together through the mind-numbing speed of financial capital and money markets, and new technologies, our interdependence as peoples of this world is only generating confusions, conflicts, and resentments. An interdependent humanity has become what Adorno called “a negative universal”—an interdependence which results from the unintended consequences of our actions but not our intentions. To transform the negative universality of our current condition into a true universality of non-identitarian solidarity is Adorno’s legacy for us."

Peter Niesen on Habermas's new book

Prof. Peter Niesen (Hamburg) reviews Jürgen Habermas's in-depth conversation with Stefan Müller-Doohm and Roman Yos in "Es musste etwas besser werden" (Suhrkamp, 2024):

"Habermas’ ursprüngliche Einsicht" (Soziopolis, October 15, 2024)

Interview with Stefan Müller-Doohm & Roman Yos

In the "Frankfurter Rundschau" (October 9, 2024), an interview with Stefan Müller-Doohm and Roman Yos on their in-depth conversation with Habermas in "Es musste etwas besser werden..." (Suhrkamp, 2024):

"Was aus der Demokratie wird, ist eine Hauptsorge von Habermas"