From Poisons to Antidotes: Algorithms as Democracy Boosters

Under what conditions can artificial intelligence contribute to political processes without undermining their legitimacy? Thanks to the ever-growing availability of data and the increasing power of decision-making algorithms, the future of political institutions is unlikely to be anything similar to what we have known throughout the last century, possibly with parliaments deprived of their traditional authority and public decision-making processes largely unaccountable. This paper discusses and challenges these concerns by suggesting a theoretical framework under which algorithmic decision-making is compatible with democracy and, most relevantly, can offer a viable solution to counter the rise of populist rhetoric in the governance arena. Such a framework is based on three pillars: (1) understanding the civic issues that are subjected to automated decision-making; (2) controlling the issues that are assigned to AI; and (3) evaluating and challenging the outputs of algorithmic decision-making.