Professorship of Computational Social Science (COSS) at @ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Digital Democracy | Agent-Based Modeling | Participatory Approaches
Zurich, Switzerland
Joined October 2014
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Will we all live in megacities? Over the past 50 years, the share of humanity in 1M+ cities has more than doubled—from 11% to 24%. The biggest cities seem to be pulling ahead, making it easy to imagine a future where megacities swallow a large share of the world's population 1/3
But our new @PNASNews paper shows their rise will slow. Big cities grow faster only in the early stages of a country's urbanization. Later, big and small cities start to grow at the same rate — the giants pull ahead first, then the rest catch up. 2/3
We built a scrollytelling piece to walk through the whole story: megacities.ch
Work done between @ETH_en and @CSHVienna, by @andreamusso96 @DiegoRybski Dirk Helbing @FrankNeffke
Paper: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.25…
3/3
Check out this video showing how to upgrade democracy using fairer voting methods: To better represent people in decisions To create more diverse impact for communities, and To build safeguards for democracy against AI biases!
youtube.com/watch?v=zSavro3D…
There is a fascinating trend in the Eurovision: once-winning formulas (English lyrics, pop sound, danceability) eventually become the baseline!
ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/e…
What can Eurovision teach us about learning systems?
New research shows how both organizers and participants adapt over time. It’s “multi-level learning” in action, where feedback shapes behavior across an entire system.
royalsocietypublishing.org/r…
Check out the latest COSS podcast on reflections on Democracy!
youtube.com/watch?v=Hx_G7ZHz…
Algorithms can bridge large-scale voting with face-to-face deliberation via real world. Key tools: Preference-based Clustering for Deliberation, human-in-the-loop & “Read The Room” visualisations for transparent group decision-making.
arxiv.org/abs/2502.05017
We can use digital twin simulations to test design choices in deliberative democracy by running “what-if” scenarios in virtual communities to explore better democratic institutions.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.…
Co-creating the future: how digital technologies, AI, and open-source innovation are transforming cities into participatory ecosystems for governance and sustainability.
A vision for more democratic, resilient urban futures.
royalsocietypublishing.org/d…
How do citizens judge legitimacy in municipal budgeting? This study finds that participatory methods (like the Method of Equal Shares) boost perceived fairness. But process alone can't fix outcome dissatisfaction.
royalsocietypublishing.org/d…
The facilitator's paradox in co-creation: boosting group cohesion can unintentionally reduce the diversity that drives innovation. Agent-based modeling uncovers how to strike the right balance.
royalsocietypublishing.org/d…
Can collective intelligence + participatory budgeting empower everyone? This agent-based modeling shows that naive approaches can harm minorities unless we share knowledge. Open innovation boosts fairness and quality for all.
royalsocietypublishing.org/d…
Science and technology are evolving at incredible speed for which we need new ethical architectures, not just patchwork fixes. This paper calls for reshaping institutions to keep up with deep tech transformations
royalsocietypublishing.org/d…
Converging technologies (AI, gene editing, neurotech, nano) are collapsing domain boundaries and outpacing siloed regulation. We need converging international governance to keep pace.
link.springer.com/article/10…
“Human digital twins” might be the key to enabling Society 5.0, but not without serious risks. The new study explores how digital replicas of humans could reshape AI‑human interaction, identity, privacy, autonomy, and social power.
link.springer.com/article/10…
Trustworthiness of Voting Advice Applications in Europe” finds that these VAAs often fall short on transparency, stakeholder diversity, clear documentation, and disclosing assumptions, even though they can shape electoral behavior.
link.springer.com/article/10…
Urban Digital Twins and metaverses towards city multiplicities” argues that immersive UDTs may do more than just optimize: they risk deepening social divides by offering multiple, co‑existing urban “realities” tailored to different stakeholders.
link.springer.com/article/10…
“LLM Voting: Human Choices and AI Collective Decision Making” finds that GPT‑4 / LLaMA‑2’s votes shift with voting methods, ordering, and persona settings and that they may show less diversity & biases vs. humans.
arxiv.org/abs/2402.01766
"Designing Digital Voting Systems for Citizens: Achieving Fairness and Legitimacy in Participatory Budgeting” shows that more expressive vote input and fair aggregation rules boost citizens’ perceptions of legitimacy.
dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/36653…