Mutual Impact of Politics and AI in a World of Developing Populist and Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

Technology and politics cannot develop separate from one another. Not just the development but also how they are applied and used in what means. Political leaders, especially in authoritarian regimes have great impact in regulating technological developments. Both present and future are affected by these regulations. AI is the most prominent development of our century and it will be used in every part of society in the near future. It is already used in various governmental institutions and the more technologically advanced states have advantage over it which directly impacts power dynamics.

Many people understand politics as the work of politicians and as a separate entity from our daily lives. Lately even the term ‘apolitical’ is quite popular and many people identify themselves as apolitical. However, I disagree. I believe everything in our lives is political; from the prices in grocery stores, to the discourses we have in our daily encounters. And technology is even more important. While even the simplest things like market prices have an importance in our lives, technology – as people of the 21st century – is even more crucial to us. And just as everything else our technological developments are affected by our politics. AI being the most prominent technological development of our period and not only the most prominent but also the most important one, I would like to focus on the relationship between this branch of technology and politics.

Even though authority and authoritarian are similar terms, also in this study it is important to make the discrimination between these two terms. Because, authority is needed even to regulate technology, however, since the term authoritarian indicates oppressive and extremist regimes the technology regulated under such regimes has tendency to be dangerous. That’s why it is important to draw ethical boundaries to avoid increased amount of harm.

Since this is a theoretical work, I have read and will be reading a series of articles, including [1], [2] and [3]. Since this work is also about authoritarian regimes, leaders who can be categorized as authoritarian are a source of information and their speeches, interviews etc. will be included and studied. For that the development of the country in the field of AI is important so only the countries who have enough access to the technology are included. Terminology is very important for this work. Therefore, there will be a chapter dedicated to it. I will analyze these resources and my observations with all the cons and pros. After emphasizing on them in my paper, I will be creating possible ethical solutions for them.

References

[1] A. Visvizi, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Exploring the Impact of AI on Politics and Society,” Sustainability, vol. 14 no. 3, p.1730, 2022.

[2] M. Weber, “Politics as a Vocation, [Review of Politics as a Vocation],” Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1919.

[3] K. Crawford, T. Paglen, “Excavating AI: the politics of images in machine learning training sets,” Ai & Society, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146–021-01162–8