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Extractive summaries and key takeaways from the articles curated from TOP TEN BUSINESS MAGAZINES to promote informed business decision-making | Since September 2017 | Week 307 | July 28-August 3, 2023

Six ways that AI could change politics

By Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders | MIT Technology Review | July 28, 2023

Listen to the Extractive Summary of the Article

ChatGPT was released just nine months ago, and we are still learning how it will affect our daily lives, our careers, and even our systems of self-governance.  But when it comes to how AI may threaten our democracy, much of the public conversation lacks imagination. People talk about the danger of campaigns that attack opponents with fake images (or fake audio or video) because we already have decades of experience dealing with doctored images. 

The truth is, the future will be much more interesting. And even some of the most stupendous potential impacts of AI on politics won’t be all bad.  With this in mind, the authors propose six milestones that will herald a new era of democratic politics driven by AI. All feel achievable—perhaps not with today’s technology and levels of AI adoption, but very possibly in the near future.

1. The acceptance by a legislature or agency of a testimony or comment generated by, and submitted under the name of, an AI.
2. The adoption of the first novel legislative amendment to a bill written by AI.
3. AI-generated political messaging outscores campaign consultant recommendations in poll testing.
4. AI creates a political party with its own platform, attracting human candidates who win elections.
5. AI autonomously generates profit and makes political campaign contributions.
6. AI achieves a coordinated policy outcome across multiple jurisdictions.

The greatest challenge to most of these milestones is their observability: will we know it when we see it? The first campaign consultant whose ideas lose out to an AI may not be eager to report that fact. Neither will the campaign. Regarding fundraising, it’s hard enough for us to track down the human actors who are responsible for the “dark money” contributions controlling much of modern political finance; will we know if a future dominant force in fundraising for political action committees is an AI?  We’re likely to observe some of these milestones indirectly. At some point, perhaps politicians’ dollars will start migrating en masse to AI-based campaign consultancies and, eventually, we may realize that political movements sweeping across states or countries have been AI-assisted.

The six milestones outlined here are among the most viable and meaningful upcoming interactions between AI and democracy, but they are hardly the only scenarios to consider. The point is that our AI-driven political future will involve far more than deepfaked campaign ads and manufactured letter-writing campaigns. We should all be thinking more creatively about what comes next and be vigilant in steering our politics toward the best possible ends, no matter their means.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. When it comes to how AI may threaten our democracy, much of the public conversation lacks imagination.
2. The truth is, the future will be much more interesting.  Six milestones that could herald a new era of democratic politics driven by AI: the acceptance by a legislature or agency of a testimony or comment generated by, and submitted under the name of an AI; the adoption of the first novel legislative amendment to a bill written by AI; AI-generated political messaging outscores campaign consultant recommendations in poll testing; AI creates a political party with its own platform, attracting human candidates who win elections; AI autonomously generates profit and makes political campaign contributions; and AI achieves a coordinated policy outcome across multiple jurisdictions.
3. All feel achievable—perhaps not with today’s technology and levels of AI adoption, but very possibly in the near future.

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Topics:  Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Democracy