The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in politics has become a topic of concern as warnings about its potential to spread disinformation and manipulate election results continue to make headlines. However, there are also efforts being made to harness the power of AI in ways that could enhance democracy, according to Campaign Lab co-founder Hannah O’Rourke. Her left-leaning network of tech volunteers runs training courses for Labour and Liberal Democrat campaigners on how to use Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) to create the first draft of election leaflets. The group is experimenting with chatbots to train canvassers to have more engaging conversations on the doorstep.
Conservative-supporting AI expert Joe Reeve is convinced that AI has the potential to transform politics for the better. He runs Future London, a community of “techno optimists” that uses AI to seek answers to big questions. He founded Tory Techs, partially as a right-wing response to Campaign Lab. The group has run programming sessions and explored using AI to hone Tory campaign messages. However, Mr Reeve says the group now mostly focuses on speaking with MPs to help coach politicians on what AI means and how it can positively impact politics.
Andrew Gray is the UK’s first AI-powered election candidate. He was roundly rejected by voters in July 2021, gaining only 99 votes in the Selby and Ainsty by-election. Gray’s campaign was based on Polis, an AI-powered tool that allows groups with widely different opinions to reach a consensus through votes and discussion. His non-profit organization, Crowd Wisdom Project, has helped local councils, such as Wandsworth, develop policies using Polis.
Polling company Deltapoll’s co-founder, Joe Twyman, says that AI has enabled sophisticated “regression” polls, such as ones predicting a Labour general election landslide. Deltapoll is working with tech start-up Bombe, which uses AI to analyze polling data collected from smaller samples. However, Mr Twyman dismisses the idea large language models (LLMs) could be used to simulate voters as people are more complex and unpredictable than machines trained on existing data.
While there are concerns about AI potentially wrecking elections and threatening democracy, there are also potential benefits of AI. Harnessing the power of AI in a responsible way could free up time for more face-to-face campaigning. AI’s ability to crunch vast amounts of data offers deeper insights into what constituents and voters think and feel. As AI technology evolves, only time will tell how it will impact politics in the future
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