Congratulations to Raffaele Amplo on an outstanding Master’s thesis!
His thesis “AI-Supported Pre-Process Reflection for Renewable Energy Infrastructure Projects: Designing and Evaluating a Source-Bound Chatbot” explores how AI can support citizens before formal participation begins in the approval processes for renewable energy infrastructure projects.
As governments worldwide increasingly accelerate approval procedures for renewable energy infrastructure projects, citizens must navigate complex information, system interdependencies, competing interests, and difficult trade-offs within compressed decision-making processes.
This thesis proposes an AI-supported chatbot designed as a pre-process reflection space that helps people better understand these complexities, reflect on their own perspectives, and enter public participation processes better informed and better prepared for constructive dialogue.
It was a pleasure to supervise this work and to discuss these ideas throughout the project.
I look forward to further developing these ideas in future research projects and exploring how AI-supported reflection spaces can be applied in energy transition projects — and whether they can contribute to more constructive participation in sustainability transitions.
If you are involved in a renewable energy infrastructure project and would be interested in collaborating and testing such a chatbot in practice, please get in touch.
