EqualityByLot Contributors: Can your contributions be used for sortition GPTs?

Posted on September 29, 2025 by Jochen Krattenmacher

I am currently working on building a custom GPT with expertise in sortition. I am not an AI expert: I am simply using the custom GPT feature by ChatGPT, where I am adding a knowledge base consisting of texts about sortition. That’s it – plus a few basic instructions to inform the GPT’s behavior. You can find up-to-date links to the GPT on my homepage, as well as information on its knowledge base and instructions.

The idea is simple:

  1. For newcomers: anyone curious about lottocracy can ask it questions (e.g., “What are the historical precedents?”, “What about experts?”), and get helpful answers.
  2. For advocates: it can also help us – the people already convinced – by generating talking points, suggesting how to respond to objections, or adapting explanations to different audiences. In short: a digital sparring partner to sharpen our arguments and make advocacy easier.

The purpose is not to replace discussion, but to lower barriers: to make it easier for newcomers to quickly get informed, and to give advocates a 24/7 assistant in the work of making the advantages of sortition more broadly known. The GPT is and will always be freely accessible (no charge).

Equality by Lot is a rich public archive of arguments related to sortition. Being able to use this knowledge for a sortition GPT obviously would be helpful.

That’s why I would like to ask:

Would contributors here be comfortable with their posts being used as part of the knowledge base for such a (freely accessible) GPT?

Of course, if anyone prefers their posts not to be included, that will be respected. If you do not indicate your agreement (either here in the comments or via email), I won’t include them. Since I do not want to monopolize this space, it would be helpful if you could also make clear whether your agreement is only in respect to my project or in respect to any freely available sortition advocacy GPT.

Just to stress this point: I believe the best way forward is to make the data broadly available so that any sortition advocate can create their own version of a Sortition GPT. Again, I am not an AI expert, but I suspect that there would be value in tailoring GPTs to local contexts. One person might want a model fine-tuned for the German-speaking world. Another might prefer a version focused on Athenian democracy, or on contemporary citizens’ assemblies and empirical research.

Of course, any feedback or thoughts on this project are highly welcome!

Filed under: Sortition | Tagged: , , , , | 8 Comments »

Equality among whom? Why lottocrats should build on citizenship

Posted on August 27, 2025 by Jochen Krattenmacher

One of the more sensitive questions around sortition-based democracy is who should get to participate in political decision-making. Should assemblies be drawn only from citizens? Or should everyone who lives in a country be included? I have encountered this debate many times, and just now I am in a discussion whether a political party by lottocrats should aim for a lottocracy-for-citizens or a lottocracy-for-all-residents.

Here is my take: There are good arguments for extending political power, but if we want sortition to succeed and gain broad legitimacy, it should begin with citizens.

Here is the argument:

One of the greatest selling points of sortition is that it is "process-only": It exclusively is concerned with how the demos governs itself, not what its decisions should be. This outcome-neutrality has the potential to appeal to a broad spectrum of people across political tribes. However, if the adoption of sortition becomes tied to highly polarized debates over citizenship and borders, this broad appeal is diminished. Even if a political party should succeed in establishing a lottocracy for all inhabitants, chances are that it will do so at a steep price: Many people might view that lottocracy as illegitimate, which is especially dangerous for a nascent political system whose institutions will not yet be firmly established.

There’s also a psychological lens to consider: People tend to be loss-averse. When they feel that something they value—such as the privileges attached to citizenship—is being taken away, they will resist, even if the overall outcome could benefit them. And of course, there are plenty of (wanna-be) aristocrats and monarchs out there who would be more than happy to whip up such fears to gain political advantage.
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Filed under: Elections, Sortition | 2 Comments »