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JULY 2020 SPECIAL EDITION

Spotlight on Democracy, Mis/Disinformation & AI

Curated by Rachel Brooks, AI for Peace Research Fellow

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WHY A SPECIAL EDITION ON DEMOCRACY, MIS/DISINFORMATION & AI? 

 

AI technologies have made rapid progress and impact -- both positive and negative -- on society and its political processes. When thinking about democracy, AI technology can manipulate political discourse and voters, but it can also share valuable information, mobilize action, and aid peace. As our AI Explained guide lays out, government officials and policymakers have a responsibility to engage AI. AI has become and will become increasingly integral to democracy and human rights, and it is imperative to understand AI developments and their impact on policy-making. 

 

Below find an assortment of recent articles, podcasts, webinars, and other resources for our special edition on democracy, mis/disinformation, and AI.

 RECENT ARTICLES WE RECOMMEND 

 

“How AI can empower communities and strengthen democracy” – 4 July 2020, Khari Johnson for VentureBeat 

AI enables value extraction as well as the empowerment of individuals and societies. AI sometimes propagates biases, but it can also be implemented to detect biases. Dr. Safiya Noble explains that artificial intelligence is one of our lifetime’s crucial human rights issues. Further, Microsoft’s CTO Kevin Scott contends that AI literacy is a critical aspect of being an informed citizen. Read Khari Johnson’s VentureBeat article for more.

 

“The new AI tools spreading fake news in politics and business” – 9 May 2020, Hannah Murphy in The Financial Times

In this article, Murphy highlights insights from disinformation experts including Camille François and Sara-Jayne Terp to discuss emerging technologies such as readfakes or synthetic text that could enable online trickery and the spread of disinformation and misinformation as practitioners search for solutions. 

 

“Images and misinformation in political groups: evidence from WhatsApp in India” – 7 July 2020, Kiran Garimella and Dean Eckles in Misinformation Review

In this Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review piece, Kiran Garimella and Dean Eckles examined politically-oriented content from WhatsApp groups in India with a focus on the 2019 Indian elections. Their research found about ten percent of shared images were known misinformation and the types were categorical using machine learning. 

 

“Exposure to social engagement metrics increases vulnerability to misinformation” – 28 July 2020, Mihai Avram, Nicholas Micallef, Sameer Patil, and Filippo Menczer in Misinformation Review

The authors of this article found that the engagement metrics across different social media feeds increases users’ vulnerabilities to low-credibility information in their feeds. This means how many times posts are liked and shared directly contributes to misinformation’s spread and social media design influences how low-credibility information amplifies.

 

“Russian Twitter disinformation campaigns reach across the American political spectrum” – 14 January 2020, Deen Freelon and Tetyana Lokot in Misinformation Review

This Misinformation Review article by Deen Freelon and Tetyana Lokot finds evidence from Twitter data that Russian social media actors exploited political and racial identities to infiltrate specific groups of users across the ideological spectrum.  

 

“Fake News -- Democracy and Disinformation” – 27 February 2020, Stefan Schaible of Roland Berger

Facebook’s rise has challenged politics in new ways, including enabling the ease of disseminating false information at massive scales. Roland Berger and the Internet Economy Foundation (IE.F) came together for a joint study calling for a reset. They argue if “you want to effectively combat ‘fake news,’ you have to readjust the balance between freedom of opinion and user safety.”

 

“Researchers use AI and create early warning system to identify disinformation online” – 27 March 2020 

University of Notre Dame researchers are creating an early warning system to detect online deepfakes, manipulated images, and disinformation. The automated and scalable tactic applies computer vision-based strategies to content-based image retrieval to seek out political memes from different platforms. 

 

ICYMI 

 

“Why AI is a threat to democracy—and what we can do to stop it” – 26 February 2019, Karen Hao Q&A with Futurist and NYU Professor Amy Webb in The Futurist 

Futurist, NYU professor, and award-winning author Amy Webb has spent a lot of time researching, discussing, and meeting with people and organizations regarding AI. Webb asserts, “We’ve reached a fever pitch in all things AI.” It is now time to look at where it is going, and that is what she seeks to do in her new book, The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity. Taking a bird’s-eye view of trends, Webb examines the implications of AI technology’s development, and this Q&A with Karen Hao gets into this discussion about AI’s influence on democracy.

 

“At Least 70 Countries Have Had Disinformation Campaigns, Study Finds” – 26 September 2019, Davey Alba and Adam Satariano in The New York Times 

Even with growing efforts from online platforms and other actors to fight disinformation, researchers at Oxford shared a report detailing how the usage of disinformation techniques by governments is growing. The reasons for such tactics range from burying conflicting perspectives, discrediting opponents, and interfering in global affairs. 

 

“The Future of Democracy in the AI Era” – 3 October 2019, Sukhayl Niyazov for Aero 

Social equality and equality of opportunity are critical to democracy; however, AI and its implementation may create an increasingly unequal society as data is gradually turning into the most valuable asset. Those who control data control much of the future, according to Sukhayl Niyazov in this article.

 

“Artificial Intelligence And The End Of Government” – 4 January 2019, Daniel Araya in Forbes 

This Forbes article seeks to uncover what the influence of artificial intelligence will be on the nature of government and how the public sector will interact with AI-driven technologies. Author Daniel Araya argues the necessity of digital democracies that capitalize on AI and Big Data. 

PODCASTS AND WEBINARS WE RECOMMEND    

 

 “John Allen and Darrell West discuss artificial intelligence on The Lawfare Podcast” – Brookings Institute, 21 July 2020 

John Allen, president of Brookings and a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general, and Darrell West, senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation and the vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, sat down with The Lawfare Podcast’s Benjamin Wittes to discuss their Brookings book “Turning Point: Policymaking in the Era of Artificial Intelligence.” The discussion includes what AI is exactly, how it is currently being used, and thoughts on the future. 

 

“Election integrity and security in the era of COVID-19” – Brookings Institute, July 17, 2020

Foreign interference and disinformation in United States elections are not new threats or phenomena. Russian interference showcased vulnerabilities in the U.S. digital election infrastructure in 2016, and these operations regarding information deepened political divides across the country. Thus, changes to democratic processes in the context of COVID-19 make it increasingly difficult to safeguard the security and integrity of the 2020 U.S. presidential election yet all the more vital.

 

“Big, If True Webinar: Fighting a Two-Front War: Censorship and Disinformation in Southeast Asia” – Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, 13 July 2020 

This episode brings together Glenda Gloria, Jonathan Corpus Ong and Gabrielle Lim as panelists and host Joan Donovan to discuss if the fight against disinformation been co-opted by repressive governments, what has prompted the regional trend to illiberal legislation, how journalists and others have responded to the changes around free expression, and more. From Malaysia’s Anti-Fake News Act to cyber libel charges and convictions in the Philippines, this webinar discusses civil society efforts to uphold free speech. 

 

“Using AI to Fight Misinformation” – Andy Dudfield from Full Fact, Google.org, March 2020 

Andy Dudfield is the Head of Automated Fact Checking at the Google AI Impact Challenge grantee Full Fact. In this “Using AI to Fight Misinformation” video, he shares how his organization, Full Fact, incorporates artificial intelligence to help fact checkers around the world fight misinformation’s spread.

 

“AI and Democracy: Ancient Athens” – Artificial Intelligence Ethics, by Dr. Julia Puaschunder on Google Podcasts

The advent of artificial intelligence in today’s society will no doubt have long-term effects on democracy. In this podcast on AI ethics, Dr. Julia Puaschunder, researcher and behavioral economist, focuses on AI and democracy. She discusses AI gaining citizenship and how that could lead to an ancient Athenian city state inspired democracy. 

PUBLICATIONS

 

“Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence?” – Dirk Helbing, Bruno S. Frey, Gerd Gigerenzer, Ernst Hafen, Michael Hagner, Yvonne Hofstetter, Jeroen van den Hoven, Roberto V. Zicari, Andrej Zwitter in Scientific American, 2017

AI has made breathtaking advances, including adding to the automation of data analysis. As AI is no longer dependent on line by line programming, it can now learn and thus continually develop. The authors argue for a reorganization of the economy and society. Read this publication for more on the authors’ thoughts on how AI and Big Data are impacting democracy. 

 

“Digital politics: AI, Big Data and the future of democracy”  – Kevin Körner for Deutsche Bank Research, 22 August 2019 

This publication focuses on AI, Big Data, and democracy’s future and calls for a digitally literate society. From how technology can strengthen or repress government accountability to the implications of free services in the data economy, Kevin Körner unpacks a lot of topics surrounding digital politics.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

 

BOOK: Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives by Philip N. Howard

Philip N. Howard’s Lie Machines includes stories from the largest and most damagingly effective misinformation tactics, including the ones used in Brexit and the United States elections. Not only does the book show how these campaigns morphed from past propaganda operations, but it also uncovers details of their effectiveness and offers insight into how to tackle them.

 

BOOK: How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict by Nina Jankowicz

This book from Nina Jankowicz examines the responses from five Western governments to Russian information warfare strategies. Jankowicz discusses the campaigns that operatives run and how to better understand motivations behind attacks and tackle them. At its core, the book argues how civil discourse and democracy are at stake and truth’s value.

FORWARD LOOK FOR 2020

 

A new university for digital service in the works? Katie Canales writes in Business Insider that “Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university that would rival Stanford and MIT and funnel tech workers into government work.”

 

What is coming this fall? Led by Joan Donovan, PhD, the Media Manipulation Casebook is a resource to grow knowledge on mis/disinformation that is scheduled to launch from The Technology and Social Change Project (TaSC) in Fall 2020. 


Hope for the future? Check out the RAND Corporation’s database of tools for fighting online disinformation.

CAREER OPENINGS AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

 

The Center for Democracy Technology is looking for a Research Manager and Senior Technologist, Elections & Democracy.

 

The Center for Humane Technology is looking for a remote Center for Humane Technology Policy Fellow.

 

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