Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly seen as superior to human decision-making in specific areas, either in terms of efficiency or outcomes. This is particularly the case whenever there is a need for advanced strategic reasoning and analysis of vast amounts of data in order to solve complex problems. Few human activities fit this description better than politics, and in this seminar, Sætra focusses on the use of AI in the political domain. More specifically, he hones in on the potential shift towards extensive use of AI and politics and what he labels a technocracy of artificial intelligence. By exploring five popular arguments against such a technocracy, he argues that neither of them is successful in derailing the argument for technocracy. If, that is, certain conditions related to control and setting society’s direction are met. Where does that leave us? Sætra argues that if democracy and human involvement in politics really is important for us, we might need to develop new, and stronger, defences in their favour. We will also need to be sure that we have a good understanding of what democracy is, and resist attempts to dilute the concepts through careless references to “democratic” AI and the “democratization” of AI.
Leselekse
H. S. Sætra, H. Borgebund, and M. Coeckelbergh, “Avoid diluting democracy by algorithms,” Nat Mach Intell, vol. 4, no. 10, pp. 804–806, Sep. 2022, doi: 10.1038/s42256-022-00537-w.
H. S. Sætra, “A shallow defence of a technocracy of artificial intelligence: Examining the political harms of algorithmic governance in the domain of government,” Technology in Society, vol. 62, p. 101283, Aug. 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101283.