(Ex-)students launch AI-generated coalition agreement
To the great irritation of both their own supporters and those who ignore politics altogether, the negotiations to form a government have been dragging on for months. Perhaps Fontys ICT students have the solution: they drafted government agreements with the help of AI. In fact, government agreements. Plural, indeed.
Earlier this year, they garnered much attention and success with the AI approach to "Wie is de Mol?" during the incubator program at Fontys ICT. Now, another imaginative initiative is surfacing. On a website, three recently graduated students, along with current ICT students, have linked all election programs of all parties and all major themes together. And from this, AI-generated coalition agreements emerge.
In all honesty, the idea actually came from RTL, which, during the filming of the previous project, remarked that they could also apply AI to the coalition agreement. And that just happened to align perfectly with what three former students were already doing with their own company, OpenMaze, commissioned by the municipality of Eindhoven.
Max van Hattum explains: "We were working on a sort of voting guide for Eindhoven. Where people could 'talk back' to motions that have been submitted. We found out that it's actually much more fun to do this not with motions but with election programs." And so Max, Niek van Dam, and Ruben Fricke decided to team up with students from the incubator program - coached by Frans Mouws, just like in "Wie is de Mol?" - to work on coalition agreements.
Validated
"AI only works with validated sources," explains Max. Which is often a problem with anything related to artificial intelligence. But not here. "Only the data from the election programs have been entered." The group of students and former students are not so much concerned with a ready-made coalition agreement. "It's also not just about the current coalition partners. What we mainly want to show is that AI can be very supportive and that it shows what is and what is not possible."
The tool or website, as you may call it, does not predict the outcome of the current negotiations between PVV, BBB, NSC, and VVD. Ruben explains: "It's more about what a coalition agreement will probably look like. And then you see that there are many options and that AI can predict a lot. What ultimately rolls out in practice may not be ideal. But you can also see that reflected in our tool."
Concessions
Moreover, the group is also considering expanding the data to achieve even more accurate outcomes. Max says: "You can also have AI monitor the news, so that you can also bring in concessions on certain issues. After all, the more data, the more concrete the predictions become."
The creators are now mainly curious about what users will do with this tool and how experts will perceive it. One advantage of this tool is already apparent: the components from the election programs have been stripped of jargon and converted into language understandable to everyone. Moreover, the components and thus the standpoints are easier to find. Max adds: "And context is obviously very important. To give an example: asylum and immigration are themes in both a coalition with the PVV and one with PvdA-GroenLinks. Only, with one, the emphasis is on containment, and with the other, on solidarity."
Author: Jan Ligthart
https://bron.fontys.nl/ex-studenten-lanceren-door-ai-gemaakt-regeerakkoord/
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