Category: AI Forum

By Ori Swed, Texas Tech University, and Bryan Giemza, Texas Tech University

In 2014, Russia changed the information landscape by utilizing mass production tactics and building on surveillance capitalism tools to flood Ukraine with disinformation. Similar campaigns, on a larger scale, aimed at influencing the 2016 US Presidential elections brought these tactics into the light. That campaign involved deploying hundreds of workers to animate bots and fake accounts across multiple social media platforms, all managed from a troll farm in St. Petersburg.

By Francesco Bromo, University of Oxford, and Paolo Gambacciani, University of Bologna

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to reshape nearly every aspect of modern life, including the very fabric of representative democracy. From machine learning tools that classify legislative documents to natural language processing systems capable of summarizing plenary debates, AI is increasingly becoming embedded in parliamentary life. For political scientists, this transformation is not merely a matter of technological innovation or organizational change; it potentially represents an impending shift in how we study politics.

By Gregory Robson, University of Notre Dame, and Justin Tosi, Georgetown University

Lately, we’ve been getting daily surprises about new and impressive things that AI can do. Some commentators have begun to wonder whether AI will revolutionize prospects for economic planning.

By Kim Maslin, Hendrix College

I am not the youngest among us, which may explain why I prefer the page-turn feature on my Kindle. Like Olga, AI gives me pause. I have found some small solace in reports that students are as unhappy when their instructors use AI as we are when our students use it.

By Olga Shvetsova, Binghamton University

Flipping pages in a library is out, as is retaining and synthesizing volumes of abstract information, let alone the memorization of hard facts. There are now buttons for all of that. In fact, the youngest among us, those who were academically reared in the age of Google Scholar, may not even be aware that the flipping of pages was ever a thing.