CONCEPT
The Fishbowl Condition
Fung's adaptation of Segal's fishbowl metaphor: the structural state in which affected populations can observe AI governance decisions but cannot influence them, separated from decision-makers by a transparent but impenetrable barrier.
The fishbowl condition names the specific form of democratic exclusion that characterizes contemporary AI governance. Affected populations are not ignorant of what is happening — they read policy proposals, watch congressional hearings, follow industry announcements. They are not excluded from information. They are excluded from influence. They exist inside a fishbowl of observership, looking out at governance processes they can see but cannot touch. The condition is not new in democratic governance, but AI's specific features — rapid pace, technical complexity, global scope — intensify its consequences by disabling the intermediary institutions (unions, advocacy organizations, traditional regulatory channels) that historically mitigated it.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The condition extends Segal's fishbowl metaphor from individual cognitive confinement to structural political exclusion. Where Segal's original use described the invisible assumptions within which individuals think, Fung's extension describes the invisible institutional barriers within which populations are governed. Both fishbowls are transparent — the water is clear, the glass is invisible