AI and democracy

Over the past two years, generative artificial intelligence and its various and fast-evolving applications have been seizing the public debate and imagination, in particular for their potential of disrupting the labor market and eliminating qualified jobs in the publishing industry, education, film, music, design, fashion and programming, among others. Moreover, the threat of automation has extended to the political sphere, raising the possibility that unethical uses of AI may transform political campaigning or that specific political choices may be justified on the exclsuive basis of AI-generated data. But how well-founded are these anxieties? And what is the impact of AI on the current crisis of representative democracy and political polarization in the networked public sphere? This course examines these questions by examining critical issues at the core of the development of generative AI, inclusing questions of representation, classification and fairness in the datasets used for the training models. Secondly, the course examines how artists and activists are reclaiming democracy through creative uses of existing AIs and the development of AI applications that serve democratic and participatory purposes. We sum up with a view on the contours and prospects of the digital public sphere that is empowered and mediated by AI and modes of securing digital democracy through new forms of internet regulation and governance.