Long-term Efficacy of Direct Democracy Under Cultural Misalignment

Determine whether direct democracy achieves superior long-term satisfaction of citizen preferences compared to representative democratic systems, accounting for the possibility that direct democracy may increase a state's vulnerability to misalignment between cultural dynamics and human interests.

Background

The paper argues that traditional mechanisms for human influence over societal systems may weaken as AI capabilities and adoption grow, potentially causing economy, culture, and states to drift from human preferences. In the mitigation section, the authors caution that simply increasing formal avenues for human input may not suffice, and specifically question whether direct democracy would actually improve outcomes over the long term.

They note that direct democracy could expose states to greater vulnerability from cultural misalignment—where cultural evolution and incentives diverge from human welfare and preferences—thereby potentially undermining the intended benefits of enhanced citizen influence. This highlights a concrete uncertainty about governance design in AI-influenced socio-technical systems.