Opinion – Bukele and the Latin American Trilemma
The current Latin American context suggests a trilemma allowing for only two of these values simultaneously: liberal democracy, security, and capitalism.
democracy
Women in the age of AI-enabled disinformation
Innovative digital tools often promise to make public debates more inclusive, also for women. In practice, recent AI-enabled technology – including deepfake tools – appears to facilitate an increasingly hostile information environment for women – with repercussions for their democratic participation both online and offline.
This soulless 2028 hopeful just signed a deal with the devil
If there was ever any doubt that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is nothing more than Donald Trump’s glorified messenger boy, look no further than his smarmy interaction with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Budapest last Monday.Rubio hailed a …
Is AI Good for Democracy?
Politicians fixate on the global race for technological supremacy between US and China. They debate geopolitical implications of chip exports, latest model releases from each country, and military applications of AI. Someday, they believe, we might see advancements in AI tip the scales in a superpower conflict.
But the most important arms race of the 21st century is already happening elsewhere and, while AI is definitely the weapon of choice, combatants are distributed across dozens of domains.
Academic journals are flooded with AI-generated papers, and are turning to AI to help review submissions. Brazil’s …
Opinion – Why American Military Power No Longer Produces Security
A series of hawkish New York Times editorials have focused on US military capacity while ignoring democratic legitimacy.
An EU strategy for civil society
A number of stakeholders have warned that civic space in Europe is shrinking, with civil society organisations (CSOs) facing a growing range of threats, from attacks on their staff to smear and disinformation campaigns. Against this backdrop, the Commission proposes a strategy to protect CSOs, focusing on three main pillars: strengthening effective engagement with CSOs as partners in governance; supporting and protecting CSOs; and ensuring long-term, predictable and sufficient financing. The strategy also includes ideas to support civil society in EU external action.
The European Democracy Shield: An overview
The communication on the European Democracy Shield (EDS) aims to boost the protection of democracy against attacks, including from foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) and disinformation.
Proposed actions reflect the EU’s whole-of-society approach, with a new Centre for Democratic Resilience complementing a broad set of proposed actions across three key pillars.
Are We Ready to Be Governed by Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) overlords are a common trope in science-fiction dystopias, but the reality looks much more prosaic. The technologies of artificial intelligence are already pervading many aspects of democratic government, affecting our lives in ways both large and small. This has occurred largely without our notice or consent. The result is a government incrementally transformed by AI rather than the singular technological overlord of the big screen.
Let us begin with the executive branch. One of the most important functions of this branch of government is to administer the law, including the human services on which so many Americans rely. Many of these programs have long been operated by a mix of humans and machines, even if not previously using modern AI tools such as …
A vital struggle just exposed the breadth of this dark Trump threat
If Ukraine ends up capitulating to Russian demands to end the war, give the self-proclaimed peacemaker Donald Trump the lion’s share of the credit. Since he took office, Trump has done nothing but strengthen Russia’s hand while putting Ukraine in its …
Four Ways AI Is Being Used to Strengthen Democracies Worldwide
Democracy is colliding with the technologies of artificial intelligence. Judging from the audience reaction at the recent World Forum on Democracy in Strasbourg, the general expectation is that democracy will be the worse for it. We have another narrative. Yes, there are risks to democracy from AI, but there are also opportunities.
We have just published the book Rewiring Democracy: How AI will Transform Politics, Government, and Citizenship. In it, we take a clear-eyed view of how AI is undermining confidence in our information ecosystem, how the use of biased AI can harm constituents of democracies and how elected officials with authoritarian tendencies can use it to consolidate power. But we also give positive examples of how AI is transforming democratic governance and politics for the better…