Data-driven democracy: Who decides?

Autor principal:
Margarita Gómez-Reino Cachafeiro (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia)
Autores:
Alberto Suárez González (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Programa:
Sesión 9, Sesión 9
Día: viernes, 12 de julio de 2019
Hora: 13:00 a 14:00
Lugar: Aula 205

Political regimes have evolved since Aristotelian times and we face today the global dominance of democratic regimes. One of the pillars of contemporary democracies is the right to participate in elections and to choose representatives. During the XXth century censitarian systems gave way to universal franchise, which included women’s right to vote. In this manner, the participation in the political decision process through voting became one fundamental mechanisms for democracy, as it is now known. However, which kind of politics can we expect in a world  dominated by Artificial Intelligence?  What types of democracies will emerge? In the short story ‘Franchise’ written by Isaac  Asimov in 1955, machines are crucial for the definition of collective choices. In the society envisioned by Asimov, universal suffrage is limited to one single citizen chosen by a computer as representative of the political community. However, the final decision is made by the computer on the basis of large amounts of data. The contribution of the citizen is but another input in this algorithmic decision process. As Harari argues democratic principles are threatened when democracy is defined as a data processing system. In this work we provide a review of current AI systems, especially those that are data-driven, to assess the plausibility of Asimov’s scenario. We conclude that current AI systems lack the generality that such a comprehensive computerized decision system would require. We finally provide a critical analysis of how AI systems can be incorporated in the political decision process.

Palabras clave: data-driven democracy, Artificial Intelligence, franchise, decision processes