Name
Michiel Bakker, "Ai-mediated Systems For Collective Human Decision Making"
Date & Time
Thursday, October 16, 2025, 3:40 PM - 4:05 PM
Speakers
Michiel Bakker, MIT "Ai-mediated Systems For Collective Human Decision Making" As AI systems become more powerful, there is an urgent need for new systems and institutions that support collective human oversight and decision making. We present a set of AI-mediated systems that combine human input with large language models to help communities deliberate, resolve disagreements, and make accurate collective judgments. These systems scale democratic processes through model-assisted deliberation, collective fact-checking and oversight of AI systems. First, we introduce The Habermas Machine, which refines group statements based on participants’ opinions and critiques. In a preregistered study, participants preferred AI-mediated statements over those written by human mediators and often updated their own views. These results were replicated in a demographically representative citizens’ assembly. Second, we extend the approach to Community Notes-style fact-checking systems, using LLMs and reward models to synthesize diverse viewpoints into helpful explanatory notes. Finally, we propose methods to align incentives: LLM aggregators use crowd-submitted rationales to form predictions and distribute rewards based on marginal value. Together, these systems demonstrate how LLMs can support scalable, pluralistic oversight in high-stakes domains. Michiel Bakker is an Assistant Professor at MIT and a Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind. His research focuses on AI alignment, collective decision-making, and the societal impacts of AI. Previously, he completed a PhD and master’s in Computer Science at MIT and a bachelor’s and master’s in Physics from TU Delft, where he worked on quantum computing at QuTech and IBM Quantum.
Location Name
Kline Tower 14th Floor
Full Address
Kline Tower
219 Prospect St, 14th Floor
New Haven, CT 06511
United States
