Coalesce: How AI Can Return Power to Communities

Artificial intelligence is not just a technology trend. For me, it represents a shift in how social groups can coordinate, collaborate, and act together on the issues that matter most, from community organizing and civic engagement to collective problem solving and systems design.

For most of human history, progress has been limited less by what people know or how hard they work, and more by how well they can align. Throughout history, the biggest constraint on human progress has not been intelligence or effort. It has been coordination. We often debate whether humans are inherently cooperative or competitive, but the real issue is whether our systems make cooperation possible at scale.

When coordination is poor, even well intentioned people work at cross purposes. Energy fragments. Good ideas stall. When coordination improves, cooperation becomes easier, more visible, and more durable. This is where AI has real potential. Not as a replacement for human judgment, but as an amplifier of our ability to organize, understand complexity, and move together with purpose.

I have been thinking a lot about the word coalesce and what it means on a human scale. To coalesce is not simply to gather. It is to form something coherent out of scattered energy, values, and skills. AI can help make this possible by surfacing patterns, clarifying trade offs, and reducing the friction that slows collective action. When coordination improves, wasted human potential drops, and flourishing becomes less abstract and more achievable.

What we have today instead is a digital environment optimized for distraction rather than understanding. Endless scrolling replaces learning. Reaction replaces reflection. Our attention is treated as inventory for ad consumption rather than as a resource for making sense of the world. This model weakens civic life and erodes our capacity to engage meaningfully with complex problems.

If we want healthier societies, we need to rethink civic engagement itself. Not louder voices, but better systems. Not more content, but better sense making. AI gives us an opportunity to build tools that help people learn, deliberate, and coordinate more effectively, whether in communities, organizations, or public institutions.

Used with intention, AI can help social groups coalesce around shared values, improve coordination, and create systems designed for human flourishing and the efficient use of all our potential. This is not about hype or automation for its own sake. It is about building human centered systems that make cooperation easier, progress more durable, and a better life more achievable for more people.