AI and active citizenship

In 2022 I joined an international European team to assist in developing the “EU Democracy Rally”. It’s an educational program supporting people of all ages in their active citizenship.

10 partner organizations (see the list below) from all over Europe joined to develop a training program which helps to hone our democracy skills and fine-tune existing and future projects of social and political change. A first test run from June 26th to July 2nd 2022 in Luxembourg proved the great potential of the program.

A first contact with AI and election processes

My part was to develop a unit pointing out the effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the statistical exploitation of big data on voting processes. The topic is very complex and due to technological advances keeps evolving faster than most other fields of knowledge. The launch of chatGPT for public use in December 2023 is a very visible marker of this development.

Supported by my colleagues Lidiia Akryshora, (TBC) and Philippe Ternes I developed a beginners learning unit on the topic lasting only 20 minutes.

Objectives of the session 

This intervention has three aims

  1. to check and develop knowledge on democratic procedures in different countries
  2. to inform participants about the scandals surrounding the company Cambridge Analytica of the context of US elections in 2016 and the Brexit plebiscite in 2015
  3. to instigate a discussion between the participants how AI can affect elections and democratic development across the globe

Output of the session

Participants have a general understanding about

  • how AI can support data analysis tools
  • the principles of micro targeting
  • the claims of Cambridge Analytica about their services
  • the role of the CA in the context of US elections in 2016
  • the role of the CA in the Brexit plebiscite in 2015

Basic information

If you are interested to explore the topic I recommend to tread the following 3 articles:

  1. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/commentisfree/2020/oct/15/cambridge-analytica-threat-democracy-facebook-big-tech
  2. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/28/ideology-liberal-democracy-technology-bioscience-yuval-harari-artificial-intelligence
  3. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/06/fear-itself-is-the-real-threat-to-democracy-not-tall-tales-of-chinese-ai

Extended information and literature

For further reading we advise these publications

The aim of the project is to support citizens of all ages and young people in particular in the further development of our democracies. We aim to enhance the direct participation of citizens in our democracies and help our societies focus on the ecological transition, the reduction of inequalities, and the improvement of the general quality of life. We strive to contribute to these goals on a transnational level, making our democracies fit for the 21st century.

List of Partners

The list of partner organizsations for the EU Democracy Rally include

It was a pleasure to cooperate with the people involved in the project.

(This subpage received its last update in May 2023. Most of this website is available in proper English translation. Should you come across a topic only available in German we recommend you to use your fovorite translation service. At the moment we recommend deepl . Should you have any question please let us know by sending an email to info@eis-coaching.com)