The Promise of Politics in the Age of AI
What a global conversation on AI accountability taught me in Portugal
BY BEATRIZ REY
I have been thinking a lot about the meaning of politics after rereading Hannah Arendt’s The Promise of Politics earlier this year. For Arendt, politics is the space of freedom and action that emerges when different people gather, talk, and act together. That is exactly what I observed at the three-day Global Gathering in Estoril, Portugal, this week. Bringing together participants from more than 144 countries and 1,000 organizations and networks, the event gave space for open, participant-led conversations on some of the most pressing issues in the world today.
One circle I joined focused on AI accountability in practice, led by Monique Munarini, Ph.D. candidate in AI for Society at the University of Pisa, and Nana Mgbechikwere Nwachukwu, Ph.D. student at the AI Accountability Lab at Trinity College Dublin. The discussion brought together voices from Brazil, India, the United States, and other countries, to explore the societal impacts of AI across multiple dimensions:
online safety,
environmental action,
privacy rights,
digital democracy,
rights-deserving groups,
workers’ collectives and unions,
AI-specific risks, and
broader questions of accountability.
My group, which included Civic Tech Guide’s Matt Stempeck, focused on digital democracy. We debated how communities could begin developing their own large language models instead of relying solely on foreign-built, commercially driven models from Big Tech, which are often designed without attention to local contexts or cultural needs.
Nigeria, for example, is building one that will support five indigenous languages alongside English. The project, led by the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in collaboration with local and global partners, forms part of Nigeria’s broader national AI strategy. It aims not only to preserve cultural identity but also to broaden access to education, healthcare, and public services. By embedding Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Tiv, and other indigenous languages into AI systems, Nigeria positions itself as a potential continental reference point for responsible, locally-grounded innovation.
We also considered how new venture capital frameworks for responsible AI investment could foster a kind of “pro-social competition,” encouraging AI as a public good rather than a purely commercial product. For such innovations to thrive, however, capital needs to be mobilized beyond philanthropy and government. A new community-centered alliance for technology building may be the way forward.
Leaving Estoril, I was reminded that politics is not only about institutions and leaders but also about the spaces we create for collective problem-solving. In those spaces, freedom becomes real, and the future feels negotiable. That is the promise of politics Arendt described – and the kind of politics we urgently need more of today.
Modern Parliament (“ModParl”) is a newsletter from POPVOX Foundation that provides insights into the evolution of legislative institutions worldwide. Learn more at modparl.substack.com.
