Democracy and AI

Please note: this event starts at 16.00

AI continues to play an increasing role in democratic society and democratic practices. Indeed, digital technologies and AI have enabled many useful applications with great democratic potential, such as social media platforms, easy fact-checking accessible to all, and the analysis of large amounts of data for policy purposes. Yet, these technological developments do beg the question of how to promote and preserve public values in the digital realm. 

During this event, we will explore some of the different roles that AI plays in contemporary democratic societies and how AI might affect democratic legitimacy as well as digital sovereignty. On the one hand, we will focus on the use of AI in news and media and how it could have a disruptive effect on the input to, as well as the process of, democratic deliberation and decision-making. On the other hand, we will critically assess the legal establishment of mass data surveillance for predictive policing frameworks. We will seek to address issues such as, but not limited to, the protection of fundamental rights like privacy and data protection, the preservation of democratic values in public debate, and the characteristics of an appropriate and desirable nexus between democracy and AI. 

About the speakers 

Hannes Cools is Assistant Professor Human Factor in New Technologies at the University of Amsterdam. He is also a Marie Curie Scholar at the Digital Democracy Centre (DDC), at the University of Southern Denmark. His research interests include AI, computational journalism, and news automation. He is also a research affiliate at the Culture, Communication and Technology (CCT) Program of Georgetown University in Washington DC. Before, he was PhD-candidate at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium. 

Plixavra Vogiatzoglou is a postdoctoral researcher at the Amsterdam Center for International Law and the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam. She holds a PhD from the KU Leuven Centre for IT & IP Law, where she remains an affiliated researcher, and is a qualified lawyer in Greece. Her work critically assesses digital policy and governance frameworks such as digital sovereignty and the impact of emerging technologies on rights, freedoms and society.  

Annemijn Kwikkers (moderator) is a PhD student at the philosophy department at the University of Amsterdam. Her project is part of AlgoSoc (or algorithmic society), an interdisciplinary consortium that researches public values in the algorithmic society. Kwikker’s project is about the transformation of democratic values. She specifically focuses on digital deliberative activities and the role of algorithmic decision-systems therein.