In May 2023, Colin Megill, co-founder of non-profit tech platform Polis, was approached by OpenAI to help address the issue of aligning their artificial intelligence (AI) systems with human values. Megill believed that democracy had not evolved in centuries, resulting in distorted representation and polarization. Polis, launched in 2012, aimed to tackle this problem by allowing users to express their views and vote on others’ statements. Using machine learning, Polis could identify clusters of people with similar beliefs and surface statements that even opposing groups could agree upon. The Taiwanese government and Twitter had already integrated versions of Polis into their political processes.
OpenAI, the leading AI lab, was focused on technical challenges in aligning AI systems with human values. However, they also recognized the importance of addressing the associated strategy and policy issues. Megill’s expertise in Polis, which aimed to bridge polarization and offer a path forward, made him an ideal candidate to help OpenAI with their goals.
Megill’s platform worked by allowing users to distill their multitude of beliefs into short statements, which were then voted on by others. Through machine learning, the platform could generate detailed maps of users’ values and identify clusters of like-minded individuals. The real innovation of Polis was its ability to find statements that even groups with opposing views could agree upon, thereby cutting through polarization.
Polis had already gained recognition from the Taiwanese government, which integrated the platform into its political process. Twitter also utilized a version of Polis for its Community Notes fact-checking feature. OpenAI saw the potential in Megill’s work and sought his help in aligning their AI systems with human values.
In summary, Colin Megill, co-founder of Polis, was approached by OpenAI to assist in aligning their AI systems with human values. Megill’s platform aimed to address the issue of polarization in democracy by allowing users to express their views and find common ground through voting on statements. The Taiwanese government and Twitter had already integrated versions of Polis into their processes. OpenAI recognized the value in Megill’s work and sought his expertise to help with their own goals.
