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This book explores the evolving role of artificial intelligence in electoral processes, focusing on its potential to improve data-driven decision-making amid the growing challenges of misinformation, manipulation, and voter suppression. It discusses how AI tools from chatbots to comprehensive data systems could address information gaps for voters, candidates, and election commissions, especially during a pivotal election year like 2024, while acknowledging the skepticism and fears that often surround the use of AI in such critical civic functions.
Drawing on insights from three specialized workshops at major AI conferences, the book compiles research and expert discussions from fields such as security, journalism, law, and political science. It serves as a comprehensive resource for researchers, educators, practitioners, students, and government officials, offering self-contained chapters that cover both technical and ethical aspects of employing AI in elections. The work also emphasizes the importance of maintaining high professional and ethical standards in the intersection of technology and democracy.
This book will serve as an important resource on election topics, AI techniques and trust methods for researchers, teachers, practitioners, students and government officials in their efforts to improve democratic electoral processes with technology. It assumes the reader is knowledgeable, at high school level or higher, about one or more topics in civics and computing concepts. Sufficient background are given by contributors to make the chapters self-contained and widely understandable.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Elections Status Today from Multiple Perspectives.- 2. Challenges in Elections.- 3. Resources and AI Techniques for Elections.- 4. Perspectives on AI / data-driven technology usage.- 5. Best Practices and Use cases.- 6. Code of ethics for elections across professions - computing/ journalism/ law.
About the author
Prof. Biplav Srivastava is a Professor of Computer Science at the AI Institute and Department of Computer Science at the University of South Carolina which he joined in 2020 after two decades in industrial research. He directs the 'AI for Society' group which is investigating how to enable people to make rational decisions despite the real world complexities of poor data, changing goals and limited resources by augmenting their cognitive limitations with technology. His work in Artificial Intelligence spans the sub-fields of reasoning (planning, scheduling), knowledge extraction and representation (ontology, open data), learning (classification, deep, adversarial) and interaction (collaborative assistants), and extends to their application for Services (process automation, composition) and Sustainability (water, traffic, health, governance). Biplav is an ACM Distinguished Scientist, AAAI Senior Member, IEEE Senior Member and AAAS Leshner Fellow for Public Engagement on AI (2020-2021).
Prof. Anita Nikolich is a Research Scientist and Director of Research and Technology Innovation and co-leads the DEFCON AI Village. She is a AAAS Leshner Fellow for Public Engagement on AI (2020-2021) and serves on the NSF advisory committee of cyberinfrastructure.
Prof. Andrea Hickerson is the Dean of the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi. She works in new media and misinformation.
Dr. Tarmo Koppel is a member of faculty at the Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. Tarmo’s work is interdisciplinary including information technologies, risk management, business administration, human factors, health and safety. His focus is on Artificial intelligence applications and digital transformation – how technological advancements affect businesses, workers and the public, and what risks are related.
Summary
This book explores the evolving role of artificial intelligence in electoral processes, focusing on its potential to improve data-driven decision-making amid the growing challenges of misinformation, manipulation, and voter suppression. It discusses how AI tools—from chatbots to comprehensive data systems—could address information gaps for voters, candidates, and election commissions, especially during a pivotal election year like 2024, while acknowledging the skepticism and fears that often surround the use of AI in such critical civic functions.
Drawing on insights from three specialized workshops at major AI conferences, the book compiles research and expert discussions from fields such as security, journalism, law, and political science. It serves as a comprehensive resource for researchers, educators, practitioners, students, and government officials, offering self-contained chapters that cover both technical and ethical aspects of employing AI in elections. The work also emphasizes the importance of maintaining high professional and ethical standards in the intersection of technology and democracy.
This book will serve as an important resource on election topics, AI techniques and trust methods for researchers, teachers, practitioners, students and government officials in their efforts to improve democratic electoral processes with technology. It assumes the reader is knowledgeable, at high school level or higher, about one or more topics in civics and computing concepts. Sufficient background are given by contributors to make the chapters self-contained and widely understandable.
