Prof. Christoph Bieber from the research programme “Digital Democratic Innovations” has contributed to the creation of a white paper on the topic of “AI in the super election year 2024: Generative AI in the environment of democratic processes” as part of the Platform Learning Systems (PLS).
The increasing spread of generative artificial intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT presents democracies with new challenges and opportunities. Democracies require a public discourse that presupposes trust and trustworthiness. False or inaccurate, yet convincing, information in social media is increasing with the rise of generative AI, softening the basis of social discourse. The potential impact of generative AI on democracies has therefore become an important topic – especially in the super election year of 2024.
In this white paper, the authors of the IT Security, Privacy, Law and Ethics working group shed light on the growing importance of generative AI for elections and democracies as well as its potential impact on political opinion-forming. Challenges and opportunities are highlighted using a range of concrete examples: from deceptively real fake images, videos or audio recordings as so-called deepfakes in the run-up to election campaigns to the personalisation of (false) election information, the support of parties in election campaigns via chatbots and new opportunities for participation in the accessibility of elections.
According to the authors, democratic societies are called upon to deal with this technology, which is already firmly anchored in our everyday lives, with all its advantages and disadvantages, and to take appropriate measures such as a duty of origin or the strengthening of social AI skills to curb manipulation and influence.
The full white paper is available at the following link: https://www.plattform-lernende-systeme.de/files/Downloads/Publikationen/Whitepaper_KI_im_Superwahljahr_Plattform_Lernende_Systeme_2024.pdf
Suggested citation: Bieber, C., Heesen, J., Grunwald, A. & Rostalski, F. (2024): AI in the super election year 2024. Generative AI in the environment of democratic processes. Whitepaper from the Platform Learning Systems, Munich.