Gen AI in Support of Democratic Debates? The Case of Environmental Activism

The chapter reports on experiments involving the use of Gen AI (the latest version of ChatGPT) and different participants, engaged in playful debates for and against new forms of performative environmental activism enacted by the Italian movement Ultima Generazione (UG). The experiments aimed at assessing the potential of an AI-based serious game (1) as a way to generate reflexivity – by comparison - on mediated public debate on controversial issues of political relevance; (2) as a way to foster reflexivity on the use of generative AI tools in public debates, with particular attention to the rhetorical—and ideological—strategies they can enact; (3) and as a way to enhance participants' understanding of the complexity of a specific controversial issues.