Surveys
Below is a list of surveys about the relationship between AI and democracy. Some items in the list are individual articles,
others are links to a series of articles, and few are links to freely downloadable books.
Artificial Intelligence and the Past, Present, and Future of Democracy
By Carr Center/ July 28, 2021"Located at the intersection of political philosophy, philosophy of technology and political history, this essay reflects on medium and long-term prospects and challenges for democracy that arise from AI, emphasizing how critical a stage this is. Modern democracies involve structures for collective choice that periodically empower relatively few people to steer the social direction for everybody. As in all forms of governance, technology shapes how this unfolds. Specialized AI changes what philosophers of technology would call the materiality of democracy, not just in the sense that independent actors deploy different tools. AI changes how collective decision making unfolds and what its human participants are like (how they see themselves in relation to their environment, what relationships they have and how those are designed, and generally what form of human life can get realized). AI and democracy are not “natural allies:” it takes active design choices and much political will for AI so serve democratic purposes. "
Why AI is a threat to democracy—and what we can do to stop it
By Karen Hao, MIT Technology Review/ Feb 26, 2019"Amy Webb, futurist, NYU professor, and award-winning author, has spent much of the last decade researching, discussing, and meeting with people and organizations about artificial intelligence. “We’ve reached a fever pitch in all things AI,” she says. Now it’s time to step back to see where it’s going."
The Future of Democracy
By The New Yorker/ Ongoing Series"The New Yorker, enlisting a wide range of writers, will be exploring the past, present, and future of American democracy: tallying our problems, reckoning with their implications, and inspecting proposed solutions. If the Trump era has proved anything, it is that American democracy, which has never been without profound flaws, cannot be taken for granted. And yet institutions, movements, thinkers, and citizens—countless citizens, of all kinds—have shown their determination to preserve what is vital and necessary to a liberal-democratic society. We hope you’ll join us as we learn how our democracy might be made stronger, fairer, more responsive, and more equitable."
Technology could enhance our democratic institutions
By Mark Robbins and Karl SalgoInstitute for Research on Public Policy/ July 24, 2018
"We should not view technology as a threat to democracy. We should instead embrace it and harness it to strengthen our democratic institutions."
Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Norms
By Nicholas D. Wright/ Jan 27, 2020"The present era of authoritarian resurgence is taking place during a protracted global democratic downturn that has degraded the confidence of democracies. The leading authoritarians are challenging democracy at the level of ideas, principles, and standards, but only one side seems to be seriously competing in the contest."
Democracy Under Attack: Challenges of Addressing Ethical Issues of AI and Big Data for More Democratic Digital Media and Societies
By Eleni Christodoulou and Kalypso IordanouFrontiers in Poli Sci/ July 21, 2021
"The potency and potential of digital media to contribute to democracy has recently come under intense scrutiny. In the context of rising populism, extremism, digital surveillance and manipulation of data, there has been a shift towards more critical approaches to digital media including its producers and consumers. This shift, concomitant with calls for a path toward digital well-being, warrants a closer investigation into the study of the ethical issues arising from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data. The use of Big Data and AI in digital media are often incongruent with fundamental democratic principles and human rights."
Malevolent soft power, AI, and the threat to democracy
By Elaine Kamarck - Brookings/ Nov 29, 2018"In the space of less than a decade, the world of social media has gone from being an enabler of to a threat to democracy. While the internet can still mobilize large numbers of people to political action, it can also spew false information about candidates, suppress the vote, and affect the voter rolls and the election machinery of the state.
By 2016, social media had become a weapon against democracy as opposed to a tool for democracy. Unless we are vigilant, the new world of artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to be an even more dangerous weapon in the years ahead. This paper will look at Russian interference in the 2016 election with an emphasis on intra-party disruption and then it will look at the ways in which AI can further disrupt democracy if we are not prepared."
AI and you: how confusion about the technology that runs our world threatens democracy
By John Zerilli - The Conversation/ March 12, 2021"As Jefferson himself put it: “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” Most Western democracies subscribe to this example today. But in the face of scientific and technological progress over the course of the 20th century, many political scientists, futurists and journalists have been left wondering about the future of democracy.
In the quest to figure out where we’re headed, an obvious question looms. Just how well-informed can we expect the average citizen to be in a world that grows ever more complex and befuddling by the day? It would be naïve to think that the rise of science and technology hasn’t made it more difficult to fully comprehend the problems we face as citizens."
Artificial Intelligence - Democratic approaches to innovation and governance
By Heinrich Boell Stiftung/ Ongoing Series"The arrival of Artificial Intelligence is causing unprecedented disruptions to our economies and societies. Algorithms tell us how to get from A to B, they calculate ways to save energy and they may soon drive our cars. Which countries and industries are ready for this shift - can Europe catch up to the U.S. and China? How should we regulate AI and where should we draw lines – do facial recognition or social scoring represent unacceptable risks? Our dossier provides some guidance through this ethical labyrinth."
Artificial Intelligence: Risks to Privacy and Democracy
By Karl Manheim and Lyric Kaplan -Yale/ 2019"Threats of these kinds will continue, fueled by growing deployment
of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to manipulate the preconditions
and levers of democracy. Equally destructive is AI’s threat to decisional and informational privacy. AI is the engine behind Big Data
Analytics and the Internet of Things.
While conferring some consumer benefit, their principal function at present is to capture personal information, create detailed behavioral profiles and sell us
goods and agendas. Privacy, anonymity and autonomy are the main
casualties of AI’s ability to manipulate choices in economic and political decisions."
Artificial Intelligence and Democracy - Risks and Promises of AI-Mediated Citizen–Government Relations
By Jérôme Duberry/ June 21, 2022"What role does artificial intelligence (AI) play in the citizen–government relations? Who is using this technology and for what purpose? How does the use of AI influence power relations in policy-making, and the trust of citizens in democratic institutions? These questions led to the writing of this book."
The Last Time Democracy Almost Died
By Jill Lepore, The New Yorker/ Jan 27, 2020"“Do you think that political democracy is now on the wane?” the editors asked each writer. The series’ lead contributor, the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, took issue with the question, as philosophers, thankfully, do.
“I call this kind of question ‘meteorological,’ ” he grumbled. “It is like asking, ‘Do you think that it is going to rain today? Had I better take my umbrella?’ ” The trouble, Croce explained, is that political problems are not external forces beyond our control; they are forces within our control. “We need solely to make up our own minds and to act.”
Don’t ask whether you need an umbrella. Go outside and stop the rain."