Roughly a year ago, the cit­izens' coun­cil "AI and Free­dom" met and exchanged views on the role soci­ety could play in AI-research and the sup­port of it. Addi­tion­ally, they dis­cussed the way AI influ­ences our indi­vidu­al and soci­et­al free­dom.

To the RHET AI Cen­ter and espe­cially the Unit 4 (Pub­lic Engage­ment, respons­ible for the idea and organ­isa­tion of the cit­izens' coun­cil "AI and Free­dom"), this coun­cil was an import­ant pro­ject, not only in its exe­cu­tion but also in its pre­par­a­tion and the sub­sequent debriefings.

We inter­viewed a few col­leagues who were involved in vari­ous ways in the ini­tial idea and later exe­cu­tion of the cit­izens' coun­cil about their exper­i­ences regard­ing the pro­ject. By answer­ing 3 ques­tions, they are allow­ing us a glimpse into one cent­ral top­ic each which encap­su­lated them dur­ing the pro­cess, based on their expert­ise and their learn­ings fol­low­ing the course of the pro­ject as well.

Today we con­tin­ue with Oliv­er Häußler (Cen­ter for Media Com­pet­ence, Uni­ver­sity of Tübin­gen), who spoke to us about com­mu­nic­a­tion with regard to pub­lic engage­ment projects.

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Interview with Oliver Häußler

To what extent is pub­lic com­mu­nic­a­tion about a large-scale pro­ject, in this case a cit­izens' coun­cil, cru­cial to the course and suc­cess of the pro­ject?

Oliv­er Häußler: Even before pub­lic com­mu­nic­a­tion, one thing is par­tic­u­larly import­ant: early intern­al com­mu­nic­a­tion with all pro­ject par­ti­cipants. Before a pro­ject such as a cit­izens' assembly even begins, the fol­low­ing ques­tions should be answered: "What are the spe­cif­ic goals of the pro­ject? What impact is it inten­ded to have on soci­ety and polit­ics, as well as with­in the uni­ver­sity? Who bene­fits from such a cit­izens' assembly and who is it for? And which poten­tial sup­port­ers of the pro­ject should I address intern­ally?" Only once the impact goals have been val­idly iden­ti­fied can I look fur­ther at what resources I need to achieve these goals.

The second step would be to com­mu­nic­ate with extern­al part­ners involved in the pro­ject, for example: How do I com­mu­nic­ate with the imple­ment­ing agency in such a way that every­one involved under­stands what the pro­ject goals are?

The third com­mu­nic­at­ive step would then be to con­sider allies in the area of impact and find advoc­ates here: in the case of the cit­izens' coun­cil, for example, this would be min­is­ter Olschow­ski or the pres­id­ent of the Uni­ver­sity of Tübin­gen, Prof. Dr. Poll­mann, who would com­mu­nic­ate the sig­ni­fic­ance and poten­tial of this cit­izens' coun­cil for soci­ety, polit­ics, and the uni­ver­sity itself to the out­side world.

Only when these things have been cla­ri­fied can you be sure about what to com­mu­nic­ate pub­licly through your own chan­nels. Only then would it be the right time for me to go pub­lic. You can now assess what the press and media rep­res­ent­at­ives want to know about this pro­ject on the one hand, and what inform­a­tion cit­izens need to decide to par­ti­cip­ate in the coun­cil on the oth­er. It must be clearly com­mu­nic­ated what the pro­ject is about, what cit­izens can con­trib­ute, and what the bene­fits are, but also: How much time will be required? What are the poten­tial obstacles? This is to pre­vent people from say­ing in the middle of the pro­cess, "This is not what I ima­gined at all, I'm out." Com­mu­nic­at­ing real­ist­ic and trans­par­ent expect­a­tions man­age­ment is help­ful for suc­cess.

In all of this, it is import­ant that there is intern­al con­sensus on what you want to com­mu­nic­ate extern­ally. And that you anti­cip­ate pos­sible ques­tions or objec­tions that may arise: This allows me to assess the pos­sible con­sequences of my com­mu­nic­a­tion and devel­op scen­ari­os to respond appro­pri­ately.

In sum­mary, pub­lic com­mu­nic­a­tion requires thor­ough pre­par­a­tion: clear mes­sages and coordin­a­tion with­in the team, as well as a well-thought-out concept. Only then do the prac­tic­al tools come into play—such as cre­at­ing press dis­tri­bu­tion lists, identi­fy­ing mul­ti­pli­ers, or address­ing rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers in polit­ics and society.

The par­ti­cipants in cit­izens' coun­cils come from very dif­fer­ent areas of soci­ety and bring with them dif­fer­ent per­spect­ives, interests, and object­ives. What chal­lenges does this pose, and how can this diversity of per­spect­ives be man­aged?

Oliv­er Häußler: For me, this is primar­ily a mind­set issue: as a per­son with a uni­ver­sity back­ground, being clear about your own role and how you can affect someone without this aca­dem­ic back­ground. Ulti­mately, we also have a habit­us that can be dis­missive and cre­ate mis­un­der­stand­ing. It is help­ful to send few­er mes­sages and instead simply listen and learn about the needs, fears, or uncer­tain­ties of the people par­ti­cip­at­ing in the cit­izens' coun­cil. Par­ti­cipants may also express views that dif­fer from what you already know. You have to be open to this and be able to listen. And the second point is not to judge state­ments. Those who judge elev­ate them­selves above oth­ers.

Only when you man­age to do that does the diversity that you have cre­ated through struc­tur­al tech­niques in the selec­tion of par­ti­cipants really unfold. Then you also have to accept people who may have polit­ic­al views that you per­son­ally dis­agree with. They too can provide import­ant input that could be excit­ing for the cit­izens' coun­cil and that you may not have con­sidered yet. You don't have to agree with each oth­er, but you should at least under­stand how oth­ers arrive at cer­tain opin­ions and atti­tudes. And that's a lot of com­mu­nic­a­tion work and also demands a lot per­son­ally. Espe­cially from research­ers who are used to send­ing their mes­sages.

As an extern­al com­mu­nic­at­or, you need pro­fes­sion­al dis­tance and role aware­ness: you don't act as your own per­son with your own views, but are pro­fes­sion­ally respons­ible for com­mu­nic­a­tion and thus also for the best pos­sible suc­cess of the project.

Do you have any advice for future pro­jects sim­il­ar to the Cit­izens' Coun­cil?

Oliv­er Häußler: In many cases, pro­jects at the uni­ver­sity involve early con­sid­er­a­tion of the concept, imple­ment­a­tion, and resources of a pro­ject. How­ever, com­mu­nic­a­tion, which is cent­ral to the suc­cess of a pro­ject both before and dur­ing its dur­a­tion and even after its com­ple­tion, is often giv­en sec­ond­ary con­sid­er­a­tion. This is where I would see a lack of strategy. The focus is often on com­mu­nic­at­ing the res­ults at the end. And that is pre­cisely my advice: that com­mu­nic­a­tion should always be con­sidered at a very early stage and not left until the end. A com­mu­nic­a­tion strategy must be in place right from the start.

Then, of course, resource alloc­a­tion is always a big issue. Com­mu­nic­a­tion costs money, resources, and time. Exper­i­ence shows that research­ers find it dif­fi­cult to con­sider and plan for this. I have noticed this in many research pro­jects. Every­one would like to have a web­site, an explan­at­ory film, or some­thing sim­il­ar, but often there is no sep­ar­ate com­mu­nic­a­tion budget planned for pre­cisely such things. I think it's import­ant to plan resources for com­mu­nic­a­tion from the out­set and to recog­nize that com­mu­nic­a­tion is a very import­ant ele­ment for suc­cess. Com­mu­nic­a­tion is not some­thing you can just do on the side. This often leads to a dual role that you can­not always ful­fill because you are per­haps more of a research­er than a com­mu­nic­at­or. A pro­ject is only fully suc­cess­ful when the com­mu­nic­a­tion of the pro­ject has been successful.

A big thanks to Oliv­er Häußler for shar­ing his insights into stra­tegic com­mu­nic­a­tion around pro­jects like the Cit­izens' Coun­cil "AI and Freedom."

If you’d like to read the pre­vi­ous inter­views in this series:

• First up was Patrick Klü­gel (RHET AI Cen­ter Unit 4, Pub­lic Engage­ment Man­ager at the Uni­ver­sity of Tübin­gen), who we inter­viewed about expect­a­tion man­age­ment.
  Click here for the inter­view with Patrick Klügel.

• The second inter­view was with Anika Kais­er (RHET AI Cen­ter Unit 4), who spoke to us about epi­stem­ic injustice and her research in con­nec­tion with the Cit­izens' Assembly on AI and Free­dom.
  Click here for the inter­view with Anika Kaiser.