Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Societies: Perils and Possibilities

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has profound implications for the future of democratic governance. While the rise of AI offers immense potential to enhance efficiency, improve decision-making, and address complex societal challenges, it also raises significant concerns about AI’s impact on democratic values, social institutions, and citizen autonomy. Can AI be harnessed to reduce social disparities and promote inclusive growth? Some would say yes but on the other hand AI can also exacerbate existing inequalities in society, be it class, gender, caste or race and may even create new forms of discrimination. Can AI enhance citizen engagement and participation in democratic processes? Maybe, but the use of AI-powered tools for political campaigning and voter mobilization can also lead to the spread of misinformation and manufactured majorities. The potential of AI to enhance governance and public services is enormous but one cannot ignore the challenges of ensuring accountability, transparency, and ethical decision-making in AI-driven governance systems. As AI systems get used in different sectors in democratic societies, the privacy implications of AI technologies also need to be considered. The unprecedented ability of AI algorithms to collate and process huge amounts of data can throw new insights on old problems and may cure diseases like cancer in the near future. However, AI systems may also facilitate the emergence of ultra-surveillance states and unleash sophisticated strategies of social conditioning. This may strengthen existing authoritarian regimes and lead to erosion of individual autonomy and subsequently democratic values in democratic societies. While such threats from AI systems are real, the positive possibilities mentioned above are also equally real. Democratic societies cannot ignore the threats or the benefits and need to find a nuanced approach to AI development and deployment. In such a context, this panel seeks to explore the multifaceted relationship between AI and democratic governance, examining both the opportunities and risks associated with AI's integration into various aspects of social and political life. The panel invites papers which explore various dimensions of the intersection of AI and democratic societies.