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Research project

Chair AI&DEM - Chair on Artificial Intelligence and Democracy

While there is currently little knowledge about what a future technological environment based on robotisation, digitalisation and automation will look like, the Chair on Artificial Intelligence and Democracy rigorously studies the potential impact of these technologies on democratic politics.

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This programme is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation and the European Union’s NextGenerationEU.

The European University Institute, along with the Spanish Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, and the Institute of Democratic Governance have established a Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Democracy with the aim at conducting research, transfer of knowledge, dissemination, teaching and innovation activities on matters related to artificial intelligence and democracy. The objectives of this Chair will be to further study the effects of artificial intelligence on democratic systems and the possibilities that the technological infrastructures linked to digitalisation offer for improving democratic systems. A series of studies, analyses and conferences will be carried out with academics, politicians and companies linked to the sector of artificial intelligence and democracy.

The Chair will develop an ambitious, inter-disciplinary research agenda:

  • The Chair will elaborate on a strategy for the development of a theoretical approach towards a new reality that needs new concepts.
  • An increasingly automated landscape requires thinking about what it means to decide in environments of this type, what kind of human presence in the loop is possible and necessary, as well as identifying what kind of human-machine interface is most appropriate for a society that wants to remain democratic and should not dispense with the benefits of automation.
  • To look at the question of big data analytics for research about their ownership, reliability, interpretation and neutrality.
  • The principles of transparency and explainable AI must be thought of in the context of the current evolution of digital technologies so that the democratic principle of oversight is possible and effective.
  • Digitalisation has a special impact on our public space. The Chair, in collaboration with the School's “Digital Politics, Economy and Societies” cluster, will investigate the possibilities of tackling the challenges posed by disinformation and social media.
  • The governance of the digital space poses unprecedented problems and requires great innovation from government institutions, which are also obliged to act from a transnational perspective.

The team

Group members