# The Use of Artificial Intelligence in eParticipation: Mapping Current Research
## 1 Introduction  
Citizens' participation refers to citizens' ability to influence and direct political decision-making and administrative tasks [1]. Citizens' participation results in an increase in transparency, acceptability, and trust in governmental decisions and policies [2]. As a result, increasing citizens' participation in political processes constitutes a priority for democratic governments worldwide. Citizen participation can be facilitated by employing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and tools. The use of ICT in public participation is usually referred to as electronic Participation (or eParticipation) [2]. eParticipation \"describes efforts to broaden and deepen political participation by enabling citizens to connect with one another and with their elected representatives using Information and Communication Technologies\" [3]. During the last two decades, eParticipation has attracted considerable attention from both research and practitioner communities [4]. eParticipation can be divided into several activities, including online political discourse (or eDeliberation), eConsultation, ePetitioning, eCampaigning, etc. For example, eCampaigning research investigates the use of ICT in political campaigns. An example is [PERSON]'s campaign in 2008, which relied on the extensive use of the Internet and social media to approach voters [5]. Another important activity is eDeliberation, which investigates the use of ICT in discussing and deciding on political matters. A sub-activity of eDeliberation is eRulemaking, which refers to the use of ICT to enable citizens to access proposed rulemaking and submit comments. Historically, different ICT technologies and tools have been used in the field of eParticipation, including the Internet and social media. Lately, there has been an increased interest in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in eParticipation. AI refers to \"_systems which display intelligent behavior by analyzing theirenvironment, and act with some degree of autonomy, to achieve specific goals_\" [6]. Also, according to [7], \"_artificial intelligence is the activity devoted to making machines intelligent, and intelligence is that property that enables an entity to function appropriately and proactively in its environment_\". In the case of eDeliberation, AI can not only support large-scale deliberations but also enable the introduction of new features that were not previously possible, e.g., support the integrity of deliberations, enable video as an input, support gamification by providing incentives, etc. [8]. Work has been done in applying AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) to deliberation-specific tasks such as consensus building [9], summarization/moderation on deliberation platforms [10], argument extraction [11; 12], fact-checking [13], and misinformation detection [14]. In the literature, the potential benefits of using AI in deliberations include operational and analytical improvements (e.g., increased efficiency, enhanced data analysis, efficient resource allocation, real-time feedback, cost savings, adaptability to changing contexts, deliberative quality checks), decision-making enhancements (e.g., improved decision support, reduced human biases, transparent decision-making, integrity in decision processes), user-centric benefits (e.g., personalization, citizen empowerment, enhanced accessibility, improved inclusivity, enhanced public engagement), and data security. As another example, chatbots are increasingly employed in Government-to-Citizen (G2C) applications, to enhance openness and stakeholders' consultation [15]. Besides the traditional communication channels, AI enables governments to obtain citizens' feedback via new channels. For example, due to the enormous content generated by citizens on social media, they constitute a prominent source of information [16]. However, the adoption of AI is accompanied by relevant concerns. For example, a concern is related to participants' privacy, despite guidelines and regulations, e.g., GDPR [17].