7

This article argues that a company has allowed an algorithm to have a weight in the decision process (i.e. to vote):

Deep Knowledge Ventures, a firm that focuses on age-related disease drugs and regenerative medicine projects, says the program, called VITAL, can make investment recommendations about life sciences firms by poring over large amounts of data.

Just like other members of the board, the algorithm gets to vote on whether the firm makes an investment in a specific company or not. The program will be the sixth member of DKV's board.

Another article suggests that AI is already used in politics (mostly in negative ways), but there are many opportunities for politics improving:

We can use AI to better listen to what people have to say and make sure their voices are being clearly heard by their elected representatives. Based on these insights, we can deploy micro-targeting campaigns that help to educate voters on a variety of political issues to help them make up their own mind.

I am wondering if there any documented instances of AI / machine learning usages in political decisions (anything from town hall to government level is fine).

Question: Is there any instance of AI / machine learning provided voting rights for political/administrative decisions?

Improve this question
4
  • I have trouble correctly tagging this question. Any help is greatly appreciated.
    – Alexei
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 7:30
  • @SJuan76 - you are right. I have edited the question in an effort to make it different, because I am interested in a step beyond - actually allowing an artificial "entity" to cast a vote for a decision.
    – Alexei
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 7:47
  • I think your new question can be safely answered no. Nobody is going to give a machine explicitly those "voting rights". Maybe behind the scenes, or as assistant.
    – 264 champagne bottles on ice
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 8:02
  • 2
    For assistance, sure there are automated systems, e.g. oaic.gov.au/images/documents/migrated/migrated/… To what extent they can be called ai is more debatable.
    – 264 champagne bottles on ice
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 8:05

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

The simple answer is no. Currently no AI is close to passing the Turing test and being able to qualify as sentient. This is important because this is one of the main barriers to being recognized as a person and therefore being entitled to the rights and privileges of that person-hood which include rights and duties afforded by the state. There are many theoretical discussions about AI and what rights they do deserve if they were to exist in a state of sentience or high level intelligence that isn't just copycatting but currently most AI is seen as property of the creator/owner. I would refer you to this Are there any countries with specific legislation or policy on the rights of strong AI?.

In the cases where we would be granting AI rights, voting rights might still be seen as a controversial situation since some of the requirements they have can't be fulfilled by AI. To vote we usually require you to be affected by the outcomes of that vote and AI is in a particular position where they might not be effected by laws and policy that targets living organic persons.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .