“Overcoming Racial Harms to Democracy from Artificial Intelligence”

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I posted this paper to SSRN, which will be published in the Iowa Law Review.  The abstract is below: 

While the United States is becoming more racially diverse, generative artificial intelligence and related technologies threaten to undermine truly representative democracy. Left unchecked, AI will exacerbate already substantial existing challenges, such as racial polarization, cultural anxiety, antidemocratic attitudes, racial vote dilution, and voter suppression. Synthetic video and audio (“deepfakes”) receive the bulk of popular attention—but are just the tip of the iceberg. Microtargeting of racially tailored disinformation, racial bias in automated election administration, discriminatory voting restrictions, racially targeted cyberattacks, and AI-powered surveillance that chills racial justice claims are just a few examples of how AI is threatening democracy. Unfortunately, existing laws—including the Voting Rights Act—are unlikely to address the challenges. These problems, however, are not insurmountable if policymakers, activists, and technology companies act now. This Article asserts that AI should be regulated to facilitate a racially inclusive democracy, proposes novel principles that provide a framework to regulate AI, and offers specific policy interventions to illustrate the implementation of the principles. Even though race is the most significant demographic factor that shapes voting patterns in the United States, this is the first article to comprehensively identify the racial harms to democracy posed by AI and offer a way forward.

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“Trump Allies Have a Plan to Hurt Biden’s Chances: Elevate Outsider Candidates”

third parties

NYT:

Allies of Donald J. Trump are discussing ways to elevate third-party candidates in battleground states to divert votes away from President Biden, along with other covert tactics to diminish Democratic votes.

They plan to promote the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a “champion for choice” to give voters for whom abortion is a top issue — and who also don’t like Mr. Biden — another option on the ballot, according to one person who is involved in the effort and who, like several others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans.

Trump allies also plan to amplify the progressive environmental records of Mr. Kennedy and the expected Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, in key states — contrasting their policies against the record-high oil production under Mr. Biden that has disappointed some climate activists.

A third parallel effort in Michigan is meant to diminish Democratic turnout in November by amplifying Muslim voters’ concerns about Mr. Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Trump allies are discussing running ads in Dearborn, Mich., and other parts of the state with large Muslim populations that would thank Mr. Biden for standing with Israel, according to three people familiar with the effort, which is expected to be led by an outside group unaffiliated with the Trump campaign….

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“Content creators ask Meta to reverse politics limits on Instagram, Threads”

cheap speech

Taylor Lorenz for WaPo:

Hundreds of political and news content creators, along with activists, meme account administrators and journalists, have signed an open letter to Meta asking the company to reverse its decision to limit the reach of accounts posting “political content” on Threads and Instagram.

Meta announced in February that it no longer would recommend content about politics and social issues on the two social media platforms, which have tens of millions of users in the United States.

The decision has alarmed users who post about social issues, including LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, racial inequality and disability. And independent journalists and content creators say they’ve struggled to reach their audiences in recent weeks since the change was rolled out. The limits, they say, have significantly affected creators who are Black, female, disabled and LGBTQ.

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“Why Trump’s ‘hush money’ case is bigger than hush money; The judge indicates that this might be another case of election interference. Could it have affected the outcome?”

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Aaron Blake for WaPo:

But that last shorthand might not be totally apt, if a Monday letter from the judge in the case is any measure. Indeed, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan seems to indicate that what we really have is a third election interference case.

“The allegations are in substance, that Donald Trump falsified business records to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election,” Merchan summarizes in laying out the process for jury selection, which is set to begin Monday.

Merchan isn’t exactly rewriting the charges against Trump. But the characterization is a reminder that there’s more at stake here than Trump’s alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels, hush money or even allegedly breaking the law by hiding the hush money paid to Daniels. (Those particulars are salacious but seemingly small-bore compared with Trump’s other three indictments.)

What we also have is an alleged plot to illegally obscure damaging information to benefit the winning candidate in a very close election. And given how close that election was, it’s hardly ridiculous to wonder what effects this alleged crime may have had on the country’s course.

But could it possibly have swung the 2016 race?

That’s unknowable. But there are a couple of things we can say.

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