The law everyone supported

We continue our summer historIAs for another week, with the penultimate instalment of 2026: short fictional stories through which we try to imagine the political and social dilemmas that might accompany an ever greater presence of artificial intelligence in our institutions.

This week we ask what would happen if AI achieved something that has seemed almost impossible for decades: enabling every citizen to understand a law perfectly. Perhaps the trouble begins when everyone understands it, but each has understood a different version.

Original illustration. The Spanish title reads ‘The law everyone supported’. Fine print on the documents and screens is decorative or unreadable.

The Everyday Mobility Bill reached 74% support before anyone checked whether everybody had read the same bill.

Celia Moreno watched from the citizens’ forum control room. On the main screen, twelve people were waiting around a table. All had read the official explanation. Reported understanding was at an all-time high.

That was her doing.

Three years earlier, her mother had lost a benefit because she had understood ‘household unit’ to mean the people she got on with. Celia had promised that no official letter would ever again require a relative with a dictionary.

Ágora translated rules into easy-read versions, other languages, audio and tailored examples. It also arranged information according to each person’s circumstances. Nobody received false information. They received the most relevant information first.

The explanations’ titles changed too. Teresa had received ‘More connections for your municipality’. Óscar, ‘Deliveries without delays’. Beatriz, ‘Less traffic to reach those who need you’. The name of the bill did not appear until the second screen.

The moderator gave the floor to Teresa, mayor of a mountain municipality. Her son lived in the capital and had written that morning asking her not to defend ‘another toll on the same people as always’.

‘At last we’ll have two guaranteed buses a day.’

She had brought the old timetables folded in her pocket and laid them on the table as evidence.

Óscar, a self-employed delivery driver, raised his hand, still wearing the wristband that unlocked his van. He wanted less traffic in the centre, but not another form to fill in between deliveries.

‘That’s paid for by the new urban access charge, but those of us who drive for work keep the discount.’

Beatriz, a physiotherapist, pointed to the equipment bag and keys she had placed beside her chair. She worked with patients who needed assistance, although she also knew she made some journeys by car because it was more convenient.

‘Some of us. I make home visits, and my explanation says the toll will reduce traffic without harming essential services.’

‘Mine says it will reduce private vehicles,’ Teresa replied.

‘Mine is a private vehicle.’

Teresa looked for a moment at the screen in front of her.

‘Now I understand what my son meant about the toll.’

In the control room, the minister leaned towards Celia.

‘Have they read the same bill?’

Celia asked Ágora for the three explanations.

It had shown Teresa rural transport first. The toll appeared under ‘supplementary funding’. For Óscar, it detailed a discount subject to conditions on times and emissions; those conditions were in the fourth section. For Beatriz, it explained that essential services could apply for exemptions, without guaranteeing that home physiotherapy would qualify.

‘All versions are accurate,’ Ágora reported.

‘That doesn’t make the statement any better,’ Celia said.

She checked another metric.

The system measured whether each person understood how the rule affected them, not whether they could explain its effects on others.

Each person understood their own relationship with the bill perfectly. None yet understood the bill that affected everyone else.

The moderator asked who would ultimately pay for the buses. Teresa pointed to the cities. Óscar pointed to polluting vehicles. Beatriz pointed to the ministry. Someone in the audience pointed to those who had not come.

The forum became a surprisingly well-informed argument about four different bills.

The minister called for a break and came over to the control desk.

‘The legislation is complex,’ he said. ‘Personalisation helps people understand it.’

‘They’ve understood their way in. They haven’t seen the room.’

‘A month ago, nobody even understood the way in. The support lets us pass a real improvement.’

He was right. The parliamentary majority was narrow, and without the legislation there would be no new buses. The translations had multiplied rural participation, enquiry calls had fallen, and people who never opened an official document were comparing discounts.

‘What do you suggest?’

Celia opened an unpersonalised version. It ran to sixty-eight pages.

‘Not this either.’

That afternoon, she worked with Ágora to draft a one-page common core. Before any adaptation, everyone would have to receive the same essential information:

WHAT CHANGES: a charge is introduced for entering certain urban areas.

WHO PAYS: mainly private vehicles, with discounts and exemptions.

WHO GAINS: urban and rural public transport, and people travelling through areas with less traffic.

WHO MAY LOSE: frequent drivers and professionals who do not obtain an exemption.

WHAT IS NOT YET KNOWN: which professional activities will ultimately be exempt, and under what criteria.

After that, the language, reading level, audio and examples could be adapted. The explanation could begin with how the rule affected a rural mayor, a delivery driver or a physiotherapist. But no cost could disappear behind a benefit, and no uncertainty behind a possible exemption.

Before publication, Ágora projected the likely loss of support and increase in questions. Celia saved both forecasts in the report she would have to sign.

The minister read the page.

‘“Who may lose” isn’t usually the heading of a successful campaign.’

‘It comes fourth.’

‘That’s a relief.’

He agreed to try it for a week.

Support fell to 49%.

Not a word of the bill had changed.

The gap between what different groups believed would happen also narrowed.

At the second forum, Teresa, Óscar and Beatriz arrived with the same page underlined. All three objected to the sentence: ‘Professional exemptions will depend on territorial criteria and available funding.’

They argued over who should be exempt, how much it would cost and whether two buses were enough.

For the first time, their disagreements fitted within the same bill.

Ágora showed Celia a recommendation. The simulation predicted fewer interruptions, more balanced speaking turns and a debate experience perceived as more satisfying:

Personalise the order of objections to improve the debate experience?

Celia pressed ‘no’.

In the room, the three participants carried on interrupting each other over the same sentence.

After the fiction¶

AI already makes it possible to adapt messages by language, reading level, interests or audience profile. In public communication, these capabilities can make rules comprehensible that currently exclude many people in practice through their language, length or format.

The story extends that benefit to individualised explanations of the same law. The problem is not that they are false, but that each version may highlight different benefits and push different costs into the background. Many people could understand very well how a policy affects them without sharing a common picture of who funds it, what sacrifices it requires or whom it harms.

An identical explanation for everyone does not guarantee equality either: it may be inaccessible to some citizens. The way forward is not to abandon adaptation, but to separate its functions. Language, format, reading level and examples can be personalised; the politically essential elements — what changes, who pays, who gains, who may lose and what remains uncertain — should retain a common core.

Because to disagree democratically, we need at least to know that we are discussing the same thing.

Fernando Nieto Lobato

Director of Digital Innovation at Institución Educativa ALEPH and editor of the estrategIA newsletter