How AI Augments Our Civic Discourse
By Dan Forbush
Artificial intelligence now outperforms humans at many tasks—sometimes marginally, sometimes dramatically—depending not only on the nature of the task, but also on the specific tool used. At Smartacus, we’re less interested in replacing people than in showing how humans and AI can collaborate to do what neither could do alone.
We demonstrate this approach through our Civic Conversations: public dialogues hosted on Zoom, transcribed with Otter, synthesized in NotebookLM, and styled by ChatGPT. These tools, used together, allow us to surface insights from expert voices and frame them in stories that are not only accurate but compelling.
A Hybrid Human/AI Method
We added the 13,o00-word transcript of our conversation with Beau Breslin to 19 other relevant sources in NotebookLM. From this aggregation of content, we generated questions for Breslin and the first draft of our feature. (Click to enlarge.)
We begin each Civic Conversation by gathering everything we can about our subject: articles, book chapters, interviews, podcasts, YouTube videos. All of this goes into a dedicated NotebookLM workspace. For our recent conversation with constitutional scholar Beau Breslin, we assembled 20 such sources—each offering a window into his work, especially his argument in A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation's Fundamental Law.
Among the most informative were:
The book's preface, which brings us to the opening scene: a secret dinner hosted by Thomas Jefferson on September 17, 1789 at which the topic of conversation was constitutions.
This Constitution Day Lecture on September 17, 2021 at which Breslin presents the main argument of his book and several Constitutional scholars comment.
This interview by humanities scholar and social commentator Clay Jenkinson on The Thomas Jefferson Hour.
ChatGPT’s Prompt
“You are a writer for The New Yorker, commissioned to produce a long-form feature article that weaves together biography, political philosophy, and contemporary civic urgency,” ChatGPT instructed NotebookLM,
ChatGPT continued:
“Your subject is Beau Breslin, a constitutional scholar at Skidmore College whose book A Constitution for the Living imagines what would happen if Thomas Jefferson’s radical idea—that each generation should write its own constitution—had actually been adopted by the United States.
”Write the piece as a compelling narrative that opens not with the publication of the book, but with the origin story of the idea itself: a first-year Scribner Seminar Breslin taught at Skidmore in 2010, where students were challenged to imagine their own constitutional convention. The class discussion that followed planted the seed for what would eventually become his 2021 book and his 2037 proposal for a civic constitutional convention.”The article should:
“Follow the style and pacing of a classic New Yorker feature, blending storytelling, scene-setting, dialogue, and elegant exposition.
“Introduce the tension between Jefferson and Madison as both intellectual backdrop and personal journey for Breslin—who began as a staunch Madisonian but came to sympathize with Jefferson’s call for generational renewal.
“Bring the reader into Breslin’s imagined constitutional conventions—1825, 1863, 1903, 1953, and 2022—highlighting what they reveal about American identity and the challenge of keeping a constitution alive.
“Include key quotes from the briefing document, especially Breslin’s critiques of originalism, the Second Amendment, the judiciary, and the modern Senate.
“Explore the emerging proposal for a civic constitutional convention in 2037, not as a legal or political movement but as an imaginative public exercise in democratic renewal.
“Reflect on the current political climate, fears of a runaway convention, and the potential of AI tools (like ChatGPT and NotebookLM) to help citizens imagine, draft, and debate a Constitution “for the living.”
“Include background on Jefferson’s original 19-year idea, Madison’s resistance, and why this centuries-old debate is now newly urgent.
“Tone: Curious, intellectually serious, literary. Think: Jill Lepore meets George Packer meets Eyal Press.
“End the article with a hopeful, open-ended question that leaves the reader considering whether the Constitution we inherited still serves the people we’ve become—and what we might create if given the chance to start anew.”
Assignment Completed
Drawing from the 20 sources we had uploaded to NotebookLM, Gemini generated a serviceable first draft, as we knew it would. We also knew that ChatGPT, being a superior stylist, could improve it. Comparing the piece Gemini had generated with its prompt, ChatGPT was able to review, evaluate. critique, and improve Gemini’s piece with a highly skilled and observant eye.
Breslin signed off on the piece without changing a word.
“It’s great,” he said. “You guys make me sound smarter than I actually am.”
Let’s Imagine the Future
The AI tools we use today are more powerful than those we used two years ago. The AI tools we use in two years will be more powerful than those we use today. AI is evolving at an exponential rate. Virtually all experts agree that Artificial General Intelligence is coming. Some predict it will arrive within three to five years.
For now we have a hybrid human/AI process in which humans determine the stories we want to write and task AI tools to provide editorial assistance.
But will it always be so?
When AGI arrives, we can imagine an advanced platform on which most or all content is determined by a trustworthy super-intelligence that’s able to pose exactly the right questions to exactly the right people in order to spearhead change to create a better world. We call it Smartacus.
Gemini’s Questions for Beau Breslin
When we asked Gemini to scan the 20 sources we had uploaded to NotebookLM and generate the ten best questions to pose to Beau Breslin, it came up with the following:
Breslin wrote A Constitution for the Living as a thought experiment that started as a conversation with a student. Published by Stanford University Press published in 2022, it was awarded a Gold Medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards.
Constitutional Durability and Democratic Decline. You’ve said the U.S. may be “approaching Rome at the end of its republic,” and that this is perhaps the “worst political moment” in your lifetime. How does your study of generational constitutional change help illuminate today’s political dysfunction? In what ways do you think the Constitution, as it currently stands, is failing to sustain democratic governance?
Jefferson vs. Madison Revisited. You began your project as “fully a Madisonian” but have since said you’re “not so sure.” What developments in today’s political landscape led you to rethink Madison’s argument for endurance and reconsider Jefferson’s call for regular constitutional renewal?
Outdated Structures and Resistance to Reform. You’ve described the Second Amendment as a “real head scratcher,” noted the erasure of the Ninth Amendment from contemporary interpretation, and called the Senate the “most undemocratic institution” in American government—especially in light of the filibuster. How do these elements, rooted in 18th-century design, contribute to current dysfunction, and why are they so resistant to reform through the traditional amendment process?
Originalism and Judicial Power. You’ve criticized the Supreme Court’s reliance on originalism, calling it a “fraud” that often ignores historical complexity. How do you see the judiciary’s current approach exacerbating the Constitution’s rigidity, and does the Court’s expanding power support your argument for a more fundamental mechanism of constitutional adaptation?
Why a Convention—and Why Now May Not Work. Given your critique that Article V sets the bar for amendments too high, you've suggested that a national constitutional convention might be a more viable path forward. Why do you believe traditional legislative and amendment tools are no longer sufficient? What would a convention offer that those mechanisms cannot?
Lessons from Imagined Conventions. In A Constitution for the Living, you imagine constitutional conventions in 1825, 1863, 1903, 1953, and 2022. What do these thought experiments suggest about the benefits of such a process today? Which unresolved issues—such as the Senate, race, or gun rights—might realistically be addressed through a convention but remain inaccessible via other avenues?
Risks of a Convention in Today’s Climate. You've acknowledged that now may not be the right time for a convention and that many fear it would be hijacked by special interests or extremists. What are the greatest political and societal risks of calling a convention in today’s climate, and what would have to change to make one viable?
Designing a Deliberative Convention. Considering the risks, you've described possible solutions: using jury-duty-style randomization, public input, and even algorithms to select rational and representative delegates. What structural safeguards would be necessary to ensure a convention is fair, functional, and capable of producing legitimate constitutional reform?
Toward Radical Reform and Civic Rebirth. You’ve said that framers tend to be “small-c conservatives,” but that today’s crisis demands “radical ideas.” What significant, perhaps progressive, changes do you believe a constitutional convention could realistically pursue to meet 21st-century challenges? What reforms could ignite the “rebirth of American civic consciousness” you envision?
If Not a Convention—What Then? If a constitutional convention remains politically infeasible, what other steps could help us move toward renewal? You've floated ideas like national public service or simulated conventions. What initiatives could we take now to rebuild civic trust and prepare the ground for deeper reform?
