Artificial Elections? The Role of AI in the 2024 Election Year

Rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have transformed the political landscape. Many have feared that AI threatens democracy itself. In this event we want to look back at elections of this year: has AI really been the destructive force that so many feared it to be? And what about the future?

**Due to technical issues there won’t be a livestream/recording available**

So far this year, 4.2 billion people around the world have gone to the polls in one of the most significant election years in recent history. AI might threaten democracy through AI-generated deepfakes to highly personalized and targeted political campaigns and misinformation through AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT.

This event will open with Claes de Vreese sharing his insights into how AI influenced elections this past year. After that, we invite leading experts on AI and politics onto the stage for a panel discussion, including Aqsa Farooq (Communication Scientist), and Natalia Stanusch (Researcher at AI Forensics). Together, we will reflect on what we have learnt about the role of AI in democracy and consider the road ahead in the age of AI.

Over de sprekers

Claes de Vreese is Distinguished University Professor of AI & Society at the University of Amsterdam with a special focus on AI, media and democracy. He also holds the Chair of Political Communication at The Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam and co-directs the AI, Media & Democracy Lab and the AlgoSoc national research program.

Aqsa Farooq is a postdoctoral researcher in Communication Science and focuses on Citizens’ Perceptions of Mis-/Disinformation and Generative AI, and Young People’s Experiences with Mis-/Disinformation and Generative AI. She is affiliated with the AI, Media & Democracy Lab and the European Digital Media Observatory.

Natalia Stanusch is a PhD Candidate at ASCA, UvA, and a researcher at AI Forensics. AI Forensics is a European non-profit that investigates influential and opaque algorithms. They hold major technology platforms accountable by conducting independent and high-profile technical investigations to uncover and expose the harms caused by their algorithms. Natalia works at a crossroad of critical data and algorithm studies, science and technology studies, and digital visual culture. She focuses on algorithmic auditing in the platform context and the engagements with (generative) artificial intelligence.

Dina Strikovic is an assistant professor at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam. Her work focuses on the digitalization of journalism, where she studies the increased use of AI and algorithms in the newsroom and how these technologies are (re)shaping news creation and consumption. She also studies current issues related to populism and how politicians utilize strategies associated with populist communication to address the public.

Dorine Booij is a journalist working for NRC as trainee on the foreign correspondence desk. She wrote about TikTok’s role in the American presidential elections and about the advertisement war between the Trump and Harris campaigns. Before she wrote about China for Dutch platform for investigative journalism Follow the Money. She was nominated for a journalistic prize (de Tegel jong talent) for an article about Chinese tech company Tencent’s avoidance of local laws and taxes via the Netherlands.