Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...Gov. Gavin Newsom knows what tech billionaires Elon Musk and Sam Altman think about AI. Now, he wants to hear from San Diegans.
A new statewide online poll — inspired by the same “deliberative democracy” framework used after the L.A. fires — invites citizens to share how AI has impacted them, and what they believe lawmakers should do about it.
“Traditionally, you put in your vote in a box, and then you get what you get, right?” said Jeffery Marino, director of California’s Office of Data and Innovation. “Or you write a letter to your congressperson … you just send something into the void.”
This poll, though, will stand as a public record, he explained.
“We will have a report that says, ‘We heard you. Here’s what we heard you say,’ and then policymakers are accountable to that.”
You can sign up and offer your thoughts directly on the Engaged California AI Impact Page.
Universities and think tanks often run similar polls, but this is the first state-sanctioned survey in the nation.
The project aims to poll as many Californians as possible and to date, San Diego is the third most active county in the poll.
In July, the poll will randomly select a group of 100 Californians to participate in a discussion on how AI affects their work.
The conversations will be moderated by an affiliated coalition of universities and think tanks – like American Public Trust, Berggruen Institute, and Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab.
This survey is different from others; there are no scales or multiple choice. Instead it’s an open-ended conversation or a text box with 1,000 characters.
To gather the most accurate response, the state’s team of data scientists will use generative AI tools to turn words into structured data.
Marino says their method better captures the “degree of feelings, thoughts, concerns, and hopes” rather than forcing people into pre‑baked categories.
At the end, the department will create a single report that lawmakers can use going into the next legislative session.