The European City Squared (EC²) project combines the latest technologies, such as quantum science and artificial intelligence, with modern ideas on how to make democratic decisions. The project aims to solve some of the biggest problems in today's democracies, such as political polarization and lack of trust in government.

A central part of the project is a new method of voting, called Quadratic Voting (QV). This method allows people to express how much they care about a topic. In this way, it will be easier to make decisions that benefit as many people as possible in a fair way.

The project uses both real and artificial data to test these ideas in practice, and all data is handled responsibly to ensure compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). One of the goals is to develop better decision-making tools that can be used in real life – for example in cities like Aarhus.

Kristoffer Nielbo, professor at  the Center for Humanities Computing explains how this can change the way we make decisions in democracies:

"By combining quantum science and AI research with agent-based modeling, we develop the foundations of QV – today QV has challenges with scaling, users' strategic manipulations and user understanding of the algorithm – and thus create a fairer and more operational QV model,  that can be used to strengthen concrete democratic decision-making, for example in Denmark and Switzerland."

"In addition to being the project coordinator of EC², we lead two work packages that respectively design agent-based simulations and develop culturally sensitive language technology for EC² to increase the complexity, explainability and realism of the simulations. EC² also uses our cloud infrastructure as well as data management services."

About the Center for Humanities Computing (CHC)
The CHC is a research center that focuses on the application of technology and digital methods in the humanities. The centre works across disciplines to integrate digital tools and methods in humanities research, including data analysis, digital humanities and computational social science.

About the European City Squared project
In response to the pressing challenges facing modern democracies, the European City Squared project will use both real-world and synthetic data, along with the latest advances in quantum science and classical computational social science, to develop an agent-based computer simulation environment that integrates the latest scientific and technological advances with social choice theory.  The project will involve leading researchers, authorities, universities, entrepreneurs and representatives of civil society.

The project is realized with a grant from Horizon Europe Grant size: 2 972 396.25 €

News article based on press release from the European Institute of Science in Management
 

Contact

Kristoffer Nielbo
Centre for Humanities Computing
School of Culture and Society
Aarhus University
Mobile: +45 2683 2608
Mail: kln@cas.au.dk