[https://www.wired.com/story/generative-ai-global-elections/] -- but it
won’t necessarily be for the worse.

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has used AI to translate his
speeches for his multilingual electorate in real time, demonstrating how AI
can help diverse democracies to be more inclusive. AI avatars were used by presidential candidates in South Korea in electioneering, enabling them to provide answers to thousands of voters’ questions simultaneously. We are
also starting to see AI tools [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/generative-ai-political-advertising]
aid fundraising and get-out-the-vote efforts. AI techniques are starting to augment more traditional polling methods, helping campaigns get cheaper and faster data. And congressional candidates have started using AI robocallers
to engage voters on issues. In 2025, these trends will continue. AI doesn’t need to be superior to human experts to augment the labor of an overworked canvasser, or to write ad copy similar to that of a junior campaign staffer
or volunteer. Politics is competitive, and any technology that can bestow
an advantage, or even just garner attention, will be used.

Most politics is local, and AI tools promise to make democracy more
equitable. The typical candidate has few resources, so the choice may be between getting help from AI tools or getting no help at all. In 2024, a US presidential candidate with virtually zero name recognition, Jason Palmer,
beat Joe Biden in a very small electorate, the American Samoan primary, by using AI-generated messaging and an online AI avatar.

At the national level, AI tools are more likely to make the already
powerful even more powerful. Human + AI generally beats AI only: The more
human talent you have, the more you can effectively make use of AI
assistance. The richest campaigns will not put AIs in charge, but they will race to exploit AI where it can give them an advantage.

But while the promise of AI assistance will drive adoption, the risks are considerable. When computers get involved in any process, that process
changes. Scalable automation, for example, can transform political
advertising from one-size-fits-all into personalized demagoguing --
candidates can tell each of us what they think we want to hear. Introducing
new dependencies can also lead to brittleness: Exploiting gains from
automation can mean dropping human oversight, and chaos results when
critical computer systems go down.

Politics is adversarial. Any time AI is used by one candidate or party, it invites hacking by those associated with their opponents, perhaps to modify their behavior, eavesdrop on their output, or to simply shut them down. The kinds of disinformation weaponized by entities like Russia on social media
will be increasingly targeted toward machines, too.

AI is different from traditional computer systems in that it tries to
encode common sense and judgment that goes beyond simple rules; yet humans
have no single ethical system, or even a single definition of fairness. We
will see AI systems optimized for different parties and ideologies; for one faction not to trust the AIs of a rival faction; for everyone to have a
healthy suspicion of corporate for-profit AI systems with hidden biases.

This is just the beginning of a trend that will spread through democracies around the world, and probably accelerate, for years to come. Everyone, especially AI skeptics and those concerned about its potential to
exacerbate bias and discrimination, should recognize that AI is coming for every aspect of democracy. The transformations won’t come from the top
down; they will come from the bottom up. Politicians and campaigns will
start using AI tools when they are useful. So will lawyers, and political advocacy groups. Judges will use AI to help draft their decisions because
it will save time. News organizations will use AI because it will justify budget cuts. Bureaucracies and regulators will add AI to their already algorithmic systems for determining all sorts of benefits and penalties.

Whether this results in a better democracy, or a more just world, remains
to be seen. Keep watching how those in power uses these tools, and also how they empower the currently powerless. Those of us who are constituents of democracies should advocate tirelessly to ensure that we use AI systems to better democratize democracy, and not to further its worst tendencies.

_This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in Wired [https://www.wired.com/story/algorithms-are-coming-for-democracy-but-its-not-all-bad/]._

** *** ***** ******* *********** *************


** AI AND THE 2024 ELECTIONS ------------------------------------------------------------

[2024.12.04] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/12/ai-and-the-2024-elections.html] It’s been the biggest year [https://www.undp.org/super-year-elections] for elections in human history: 2024 is a “super-cycle [https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/global-state-democracy-2024-strengthening-legitimacy-elections]”
year in which 3.7 billion eligible voters in 72 countries had the chance to
go the polls. These are also the first AI elections [https://www.aspenideas.org/sessions/the-first-ai-elections], where many
feared that deepfakes and artificial intelligence-generated misinformation would overwhelm the democratic processes. As 2024 draws to a close, it’s instructive to take stock of how democracy did.

In a Pew survey of Americans from earlier this fall, nearly eight times as
many respondents expected AI to be used for mostly bad purposes [https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/19/concern-over-the-impact-of-ai-on-2024-presidential-campaign/]
in the 2024 election as those who thought it would be used mostly for good. There are real concerns and risks in using AI in electoral politics, but it definitely has not been all bad.

The dreaded “death of truth [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623364/the-death-of-truth-by-steven-brill/]”
has not materialized -- at least, not due to AI. And candidates are eagerly adopting AI in many places where it can be constructive, if used
responsibly. But because this all happens inside a campaign, and largely in secret, the public often doesn’t see all the details.

* CONNECTING WITH VOTERS

One of the most impressive and beneficial uses of AI is language
translation, and campaigns have started using it widely [https://restofworld.org/2024/aapi-victory-alliance-ai-voter-outreach/].
Local governments in Japan [https://japantoday.com/category/politics/japanese-mayor-suddenly-speaks-fluent-english-with-ai-video-that-surprises-even-him]
and California [https://www.sfpublicpress.org/as-bay-area-cities-adopt-real-time-ai-translation-for-public-meetings-sf-abstains/]
and prominent politicians, including India Prime Minister Narenda Modi [https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/bjp-to-use-ai-to-translate-pms-speeches/articleshow/108318912.cms]
and New York City Mayor Eric Adams
---
* Origin: High Portable Tosser at my node (21:1/229.1)