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Speaker 1: A hey, hey August Nope.

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Speaker 2: April April eighteenth, twenty twenty five, Baryton Day here with

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Speaker 2: another dispatch from the world of how to citizen and

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Speaker 2: a new story.

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Speaker 1: Couple of orientation things. UH.

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Speaker 2: Find us at stories dot howdocitizen dot com. Please sign

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Speaker 2: up for the email let us know what you think

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Speaker 2: about these share if you have a story uh that

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Speaker 2: you are.

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Speaker 1: A part of or know of. We are doing this

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Speaker 1: week long.

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Speaker 2: Push to see, uh, how much more supply and how

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Speaker 2: much more demand there are? And the response has been

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Speaker 2: real good, and I just wanna make sure you know

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Speaker 2: that we're looking for a response. So stories dot howdocitizen

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Speaker 2: dot com.

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Speaker 1: Put your name on that. Let's check that box if

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Speaker 1: you have something to add to the mix. Now, today's

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Speaker 1: story uh a.

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Speaker 2: Lot about technology, a lot about technology and government, and

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Speaker 2: of course the headline of government in tech is doge

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Speaker 2: the Department of Government made up stuff.

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Speaker 1: And that's just not the way. That is just not

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Speaker 1: the way.

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Speaker 2: That's personal for me. My mom was a programmer for

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Speaker 2: the federal government. I have friends who worked at the

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Speaker 2: US Digital Service, which the Obama administration spun up, but

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Speaker 2: which the first Trump administration maintained and the point was

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Speaker 2: to improve government services, was to improve the lives of

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Speaker 2: the people and bring technology to bear on solving that.

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Speaker 2: And what we have going on now is really just

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Speaker 2: a slash and burn. It's very non transparent, it is

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Speaker 2: not even efficient. The savings they say they've found are

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Speaker 2: mostly fraudulent and not true, and the cost of their

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Speaker 2: savings is probably higher than the money that they're no

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Speaker 2: longer spending. So that's not the point, you know how

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Speaker 2: the citizen, we'd like to tell the positive story. And

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Speaker 2: the positive story is happening in Chicago. And this is

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Speaker 2: a group called Shy Hack Night, which been running for years,

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Speaker 2: and they tap into the commitment and the capabilities of

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Speaker 2: the people of Chicago, regular citizens, data people, design people,

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Speaker 2: software engineering people, government people all coming together to make

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Speaker 2: the lives of Chicagoan's better and using technology in the process.

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Speaker 1: So that story's coming up.

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Speaker 2: I also want to plug one more thing from a

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Speaker 2: parallel universe that I'm operating in right now.

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Speaker 1: I'm doing a new.

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Speaker 2: Podcast if you want, like the latest what's going on

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Speaker 2: a very tunday in the podcast world. It is Life

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Speaker 2: with Machines. It's an exploration of tech, but it's about

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Speaker 2: the humans and it's exploring this AI super high tech

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Speaker 2: future and what it means for us and what we

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Speaker 2: want to get out of it. And this week we

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Speaker 2: have done a conversation with a man named deb Roy.

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Speaker 2: He's at the MIT Media Lab and co founded this

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Speaker 2: company called Cortico, and they're using AI to help us

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Speaker 2: see each other to help people make collective decisions better.

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Speaker 2: This isn't about replacing us, it's about allowing us to work.

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Speaker 1: Better together to solve our own problems.

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Speaker 2: And so it's pairing, an idea that we've talked about

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Speaker 2: in the full version of this podcast before the Citizen Assembly,

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Speaker 2: and we talked about it with Astra Taylor in that episode.

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Speaker 2: We also talked about it with Claudia Folets in the episode.

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Speaker 1: About Democracy Next.

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Speaker 2: So citizen assemblies random people selected to serve in government,

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Speaker 2: to advise the government, not based on raising their hands

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Speaker 2: like jewelry duty. For total government service, you get paid,

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Speaker 2: it's facilitated, and with Cordico, you have the assistance of

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Speaker 2: technology to help with language barriers, to help do to

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Speaker 2: help make sense of all the contributions of the people.

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Speaker 1: So that's the point.

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Speaker 2: All the people have something to contribute and the role

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Speaker 2: of technology can and should be to facilitate that to

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Speaker 2: help us be great. So please enjoy the short story

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Speaker 2: that we have embedded in this audio and then check

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Speaker 2: out the show notes for a link to that episode

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Speaker 2: of Life with Machines on can AI help us save democracy?

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Speaker 1: The answer is yes. The question is will we do it?

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Speaker 2: All?

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Speaker 1: Right? See you next time.

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Speaker 2: We don't need a billionaire and his technology to come

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Speaker 2: save us from government, but there is a role for

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Speaker 2: technology with the people to make government work better for

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Speaker 2: the people. Instead of relying on a secret group of technologists,

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Speaker 2: you invite all the people, including those closest to the problem,

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Speaker 2: to be part of the solution, working with those in

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Speaker 2: government and beyond with the technologists. It's happening in Chicago.

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Speaker 2: Check out this amazing story of Shi Hacknight.

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Speaker 3: Chai Haknite has become this place for folks from government,

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Speaker 3: from the tech sector, private sector, nonprofit sector to get

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Speaker 3: together and share some of their experiences and actually work

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Speaker 3: together on different projects. One of the projects that really

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Speaker 3: sticks out in my mind that sort of emerged from

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Speaker 3: shy hack Knight is a nonprofit called m Relief Coding

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Speaker 3: boot Camp graduates Rosa Freer and Genevieve Nielsen came to

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Speaker 3: shy Hack Knight and had this idea about trying to

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Speaker 3: make food stamps more accessible to people in Chicago and

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Speaker 3: potentially around the country.

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Speaker 4: M Relief is a woman led team of technologists united

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Speaker 4: by the belief that food is a human right. People

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Speaker 4: can actually submit documents through their phone through SMS messaging.

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Speaker 4: They can also find out if they qualify for SNAP

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Speaker 4: in ninety seconds or less by utilizing their phone on

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Speaker 4: SMS messaging, so they can send a text and we

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Speaker 4: will send them one question at a time. Since twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 4: we've unlocked more than two billion dollars in SNAP benefits

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Speaker 4: for people across the country. I think the interesting thing

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Speaker 4: about shi Hak Knight is that it's like everyday regular

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Speaker 4: people and people who didn't have programming backgrounds, including our

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Speaker 4: co founders.

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Speaker 5: If you can help build something around disseminating government information,

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Speaker 5: are enhancing transparency and accessibility, providing a voice and policy

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Speaker 5: participation in the process, when you can see the results

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Speaker 5: of that, that's really impactful, and that's what we've evolved into.

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Speaker 3: Shai Haak Knight has a unique vibe where it's joyous, it's.

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Speaker 1: Optimistic, and it's warm and is welcoming.

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Speaker 3: It has a lot of different people with different skill

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Speaker 3: sets and kind of united by a common interest of

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Speaker 3: being community minded, caring about Chicago, and being interested in

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Speaker 3: learning more