Artificial Intelligence and Democracy: A Conceptual Framework

Editorial Material Multidisciplinary Sciences

The growing influence of industry in AI research

Nur Ahmed et al.

Summary: Industry is gradually taking control of the future of technology.

SCIENCE (2023)

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Article Communication

Artificial intelligence and the public arena

Andreas Jungherr et al.

Summary: The increasing reliance on AI-enabled applications in media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube has significant impact on the public arena by shaping information environments, generating content, and facilitating communication. This usage of AI is expected to strengthen intermediary structures and potentially exert greater control over the public arena. Furthermore, the data-driven nature of these applications poses a threat to political challenges and hinders the transparency of AI-enabled interventions.

COMMUNICATION THEORY (2023)

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Article Law

Regulating Government AI and the Challenge of Sociotechnical Design

David Freeman Engstrom et al.

Summary: This article raises points about the regulation of government AI, highlighting the potential concerns and suggesting ways to address them by understanding organizational behavior and law.

ANNUAL REVIEW OF LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE (2023)

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Article Law

AI and Global Governance: Modalities, Rationales, Tensions

Michael Veale et al.

Summary: This review examines different forms of global governance of artificial intelligence (AI) and considers factors such as ethical councils, industry governance, contracts and licensing. The importance of interests and ideas driving these factors is emphasized, and the article urges individuals to constantly question who benefits from global governance.

ANNUAL REVIEW OF LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE (2023)

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Article Economics

Demographics and Automation

Daron Acemoglu et al.

Summary: Aging leads to increased automation, especially in industries that rely on middle-aged workers and present opportunities for automation. Demographic change is associated with greater adoption of robots across countries and more robotics-related activities in U.S. commuting zones. Countries undergoing faster aging experience more automation innovation.

REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES (2022)

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Article Political Science

Automation, Digitalization, and Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace: Implications for Political Behavior

Aina Gallego et al.

Summary: New technologies have brought about changes in the labor market, leading to concerns about the economic consequences and political impacts. Research shows that routine workers have been negatively affected by technological change and are more likely to support populist parties. However, digitalization also creates a group of economic winners who support the existing political system. The mechanisms connecting technology-related workplace risks to political behavior and policy demands are not yet fully understood.

ANNUAL REVIEW OF POLITICAL SCIENCE (2022)

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Article Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary

The Thick Machine: Anthropological AI between explanation and explication

Anders Kristian Munk et al.

Summary: According to Clifford Geertz, the purpose of anthropology is to explicate culture rather than explaining it. This raises the question of how machine learning, which may not be able to explain itself, can still be valuable in the process of explication. In this study, the researchers trained a neural network to predict emoji reactions from Facebook comments using a dataset of 175K comments, and compared its performance with human players. The results showed that the machine can achieve similar accuracy as the players, fail in similar ways, and easily predictable emoji reactions are associated with unambiguous situations. The failures of the neural network are used to explore deeper and more ambiguous situations where interpretation is necessary. The researchers discuss how insights from anthropology can contribute to debates about explainable AI.

BIG DATA & SOCIETY (2022)

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Article Communication

The politics of AI: democracy and authoritarianism in developing countries

Fernando Filgueiras

Summary: This paper analyzes the impact of political and governance dynamics on AI policy outcomes in 30 developing countries, with findings suggesting that authoritarian countries perform better in terms of AI development.

JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS (2022)

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Review Political Science

Rethinking Democratic Innovations: A Look through the Kaleidoscope of Democratic Theory

Hans Asenbaum

Summary: This article reviews different theoretical perspectives on democratic innovations, including participatory, agonistic, and transformative accounts. Democratic innovations go beyond institutions designed by experts to include remaking everyday life structures, interrupting established modes of governance, and creating spaces for systemic transformations.

POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW (2022)

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Article Multidisciplinary Sciences

Human-level play in the game of Diplomacy by combining language models with strategic reasoning

Anton Bakhtin et al.

Summary: Despite progress in training AI systems to imitate human language, building agents that use language to intentionally communicate with humans remains a challenge. Cicero, the first AI agent in a strategy game, achieved human-level performance by integrating language model, planning, and reinforcement learning algorithms.

SCIENCE (2022)

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Article Political Science

All the News That's Fit to Fabricate: AI-Generated Text as a Tool of Media Misinformation

Sarah Kreps et al.

Summary: This article discusses the prevalence of online misinformation and the use of artificial intelligence to generate text that mimics human-created news stories. Three experiments were conducted to study the credibility of AI-generated texts and their influence on foreign policy opinions. The findings show that individuals struggle to distinguish between AI- and human-generated text, partisan views affect the perceived credibility of the information, and exposure to the text has little impact on individuals' policy views.

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL POLITICAL SCIENCE (2022)

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Article Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence

AI and social theory

Jakob Mokander et al.

Summary: The paper introduces a programme for AI-driven social theory and discusses the potential applications of AI in social theory. It emphasizes the capabilities of AI in knowledge integration, reasoning, and problem-solving, while also highlighting the limitations of AI in social theory, such as the lack of cumulative, holistic, and generative abilities.

AI & SOCIETY (2022)

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Article Economics

TASKS, AUTOMATION, AND THE RISE IN US WAGE INEQUALITY

Daron Acemoglu et al.

Summary: Our study reveals that a significant portion of changes in the U.S. wage structure over the past four decades can be attributed to relative wage declines of worker groups specializing in routine tasks in industries experiencing rapid automation. By developing a model linking wage changes to task displacement, we find that displacement can largely explain changes in education wage differentials.

ECONOMETRICA (2022)

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Article Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications

Algorithmic Fairness: Choices, Assumptions, and Definitions

Shira Mitchell et al.

Summary: Recent research has aimed to quantify fairness, particularly in the context of decisions based on statistical and machine learning model predictions. The inconsistency in motivations, terminology, and notation in this new field poses a challenge for cataloging and comparing definitions. This article attempts to bring order by providing a consistent catalog of fairness definitions and exploring the choices, assumptions, and fairness considerations in prediction-based decision-making.

ANNUAL REVIEW OF STATISTICS AND ITS APPLICATION, VOL 8, 2021 (2021)

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Article Engineering, Electrical & Electronic

Toward Causal Representation Learning

Bernhard Schoelkopf et al.

Summary: The fields of machine learning and graphical causality have started to influence each other and show interest in benefiting from each other's advancements. Understanding fundamental concepts of causal inference, and relating them to key issues in machine learning, can help enhance modern machine learning research. A central problem in the intersection of AI and causality is the learning of causal representations, which involves discovering high-level causal variables from low-level observations.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE (2021)

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Article Computer Science, Theory & Methods

A Survey on Bias and Fairness in Machine Learning

Ninareh Mehrabi et al.

Summary: With the widespread use of AI systems in everyday life, fairness in design has become crucial. Researchers have developed methods to address biases in different subdomains and established a taxonomy for fairness definitions. Existing work shows biases in AI applications, and researchers are working on solutions to mitigate these problems.

ACM COMPUTING SURVEYS (2021)

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Article International Relations

Prediction and Judgment: Why Artificial Intelligence Increases the Importance of Humans in War

Avi Goldfarb et al.

Summary: Recent research on artificial intelligence and international security highlights the complex nature of AI as a tool in military decision-making. While AI can enhance data analysis and prediction, it also raises challenges in judgment and decision-making, especially in the uncertain and conflict-ridden environment of warfare. The adoption of AI in military organizations may lead to increased complexity and competition over data and strategic judgment, resulting in conflicts that are more nuanced and unpredictable than traditional visions of AI warfare. This underscores the continued importance of human decision-making in military operations.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY (2021)

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Article Multidisciplinary Sciences