University of Kwazulu-Natal

An Agenda To Strengthen U S Democracy In The Age Of Ai

Bonisiwe Shabane
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an agenda to strengthen u s democracy in the age of ai

The year 2024 began with bold predictions about how the United States would see its first artificial intelligence (AI) election. 1 Commentators worried that generative AI — a branch of AI that can create new images, audio, video, and text — could produce deepfakes that would so inundate users of social media that they... 2 Meanwhile, some self-labeled techno-optimists proselytized how AI could revolutionize voter outreach and fundraising, thereby leveling the playing field for campaigns that otherwise could not afford expensive political consultants and staff. 3 As the election played out, AI was employed in numerous ways: Foreign adversaries used the technology to augment their election interference by creating copycat news sites filled with what appeared to be AI-generated fake... 4 Campaigns leveraged deepfake technology to convincingly imitate politicians and produce misleading advertisements.

5 Activists deployed AI systems to support voter suppression efforts. 6 Candidates and supporters used AI tools to build political bot networks, translate materials, design eye-catching memes, and assist in voter outreach. 7 And election officials experimented with AI to draft social media content and provide voters with important information like polling locations and hours of operation. 8 Of course, AI likely was also used during this election in ways that have not yet come into focus and may only be revealed months or even years from now. Were the fears and promises overhyped? Yes and no.

It would be a stretch to claim that AI transformed U.S. elections last year to either effect, and the worst-case scenarios did not come to pass. 9 But AI did play a role that few could have imagined a mere two years ago, and a review of that role offers some important clues as to how, as the technology becomes... elections — and American democracy more broadly — in the coming years. AI promises to transform how government interacts with and represents its citizens, and how government understands and interprets the will of its people. 10 Revelations that emerge about AI’s applications in 2024 can offer lessons about the guardrails and incentives that must be put in place now — lest even more advanced iterations of the technology be...

elections and democratic governance as a whole. This report lays out the Brennan Center’s vision for how policymakers can ensure that AI’s inevitable changes strengthen rather than weaken the open, responsive, accountable, and representative democracy that all Americans deserve. Now is the time for policymakers at all levels to think deliberately and expansively about how to minimize AI’s dangers and increase its pro-democracy potential. That means more than just passing new laws and regulations that relate directly to election operations. It also includes holding AI developers and tech companies accountable for their products’ capacities to influence how people perceive facts and investing in the resources (including workforces and tools) and audit regimes that will... Policymakers should also establish guardrails for election officials and other public servants that allow them to use AI in ways that improve efficiency, responsiveness, and accountability while not inadvertently falling prey to the technology’s...

Nicol Turner Lee, Joseph B. Keller, Cameron F. Kerry, Aaron Klein, Anton Korinek, Mark MacCarthy, Mark Muro, Chinasa T. Okolo, Courtney C. Radsch, John Villasenor, Darrell M. West, Tom Wheeler, Andrew W.

Wyckoff, Rashawn Ray, Mishaela Robison Melanie W. Sisson, Colin Kahl, Sun Chenghao, Xiao Qian Norman Eisen, Renée Rippberger, Jonathan Katz The White House today released “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan”, in accordance with President Trump’s January executive order on Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI. Winning the AI race will usher in a new golden age of human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security for the American people.

The Plan identifies over 90 Federal policy actions across three pillars – Accelerating Innovation, Building American AI Infrastructure, and Leading in International Diplomacy and Security – that the Trump Administration will take in the... Key policies in the AI Action Plan include: “America’s AI Action Plan charts a decisive course to cement U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence. President Trump has prioritized AI as a cornerstone of American innovation, powering a new age of American leadership in science, technology, and global influence. This plan galvanizes Federal efforts to turbocharge our innovation capacity, build cutting-edge infrastructure, and lead globally, ensuring that American workers and families thrive in the AI era.

We are moving with urgency to make this vision a reality,” said White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. “Artificial intelligence is a revolutionary technology with the potential to transform the global economy and alter the balance of power in the world. To remain the leading economic and military power, the United States must win the AI race. Recognizing this, President Trump directed us to produce this Action Plan. To win the AI race, the U.S. must lead in innovation, infrastructure, and global partnerships.

At the same time, we must center American workers and avoid Orwellian uses of AI. This Action Plan provides a roadmap for doing that,” said AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks. "An Agenda to Strengthen US Democracy in the Age of AI," is a new report published this month by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. I am honored to have gotten to play a small part in drafting, reviewing and brainstorming for this fantastic report by Mekela Panditharatne, Larry Norden, Joanna Zdanys, Daniel Weiner and Yasmin Abusaif. This report provides a blueprint that is especially relevant for state legislators and election administrators to shore up democracy protections at a time when it couldn't be more important. From the introduction: The year 2024 began with bold predictions about how the United States would see its first artificial intelligence (AI) election.

Commentators worried that generative AI — a branch of AI that can create new images, audio, video, and text — could produce deepfakes that would so inundate users of social media that they would... Meanwhile, some self-labeled techno-optimists proselytized how AI could revolutionize voter outreach and fundraising, thereby leveling the playing field for campaigns that otherwise could not afford expensive political consultants and staff. As the election played out, AI was employed in numerous ways: Foreign adversaries used the technology to augment their election interference by creating copycat news sites filled with what appeared to be AI-generated fake... Campaigns leveraged deepfake technology to convincingly imitate politicians and produce misleading advertisements. Activists deployed AI systems to support voter suppression efforts. Candidates and supporters used AI tools to build political bot networks, translate materials, design eye-catching memes, and assist in voter outreach.

And election officials experimented with AI to draft social media content and provide voters with important information like polling locations and hours of operation. Of course, AI likely was also used during this election in ways that have not yet come into focus and may only be revealed months or even years from now. Were the fears and promises overhyped? Yes and no. It would be a stretch to claim that AI transformed U.S. elections last year to either effect, and the worst-case scenarios did not come to pass.

But AI did play a role that few could have imagined a mere two years ago, and a review of that role offers some important clues as to how, as the technology becomes even... elections — and American democracy more broadly — in the coming years. University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business | California Initiative for Technology and Democracy | Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) | University of California, Berkeley | ICSI - International Computer Science Institute... Looking forward to digging into this! Thanks for working on it and sharing it with us. Oh well you might as well strengthen it now!

I’m a HUGE fan of Brennan Center for Justice Super interesting work Brennan Center for Justice! I've been interested in how AI disinformation will affect less media-literate societies, and the fact that it is already affecting supposedly the strongest democracies is telling. Here's hoping AI policy will catch up before reality collapses. Thank you for working on it and sharing! You are seeing this because the administrator of this website has set up Anubis to protect the server against the scourge of AI companies aggressively scraping websites.

This can and does cause downtime for the websites, which makes their resources inaccessible for everyone. Anubis is a compromise. Anubis uses a Proof-of-Work scheme in the vein of Hashcash, a proposed proof-of-work scheme for reducing email spam. The idea is that at individual scales the additional load is ignorable, but at mass scraper levels it adds up and makes scraping much more expensive. Ultimately, this is a hack whose real purpose is to give a "good enough" placeholder solution so that more time can be spent on fingerprinting and identifying headless browsers (EG: via how they do... Please note that Anubis requires the use of modern JavaScript features that plugins like JShelter will disable.

Please disable JShelter or other such plugins for this domain. This website is running Anubis version 1.21.3. The Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute at New York University School of Law, has released a detailed report titled "An Agenda to Strengthen U.S. Democracy in the Age of AI". Published on February 13, 2025, the 39-page document, authored by Mekela Panditharatne, Lawrence Norden, Joanna Zdanys, Daniel I. Weiner, and Yasmin Abusaif, outlines strategies to harness artificial intelligence (AI) for democratic benefit while mitigating its risks.

Drawing from the 2024 election cycle—labeled the nation’s first “AI election”—the report offers recommendations for federal, state, and local policymakers. [Read More: Could a Hypothetical Deepfake Scandal on Election Eve Threaten Democracy?] The report examines AI’s impact during the 2024 U.S. elections, where generative AI, capable of creating text, images, audio, and video, saw varied use. Foreign entities employed it to amplify interference via fake news sites, campaigns crafted misleading deepfake ads, and activists used it to support voter suppression efforts. Candidates leveraged AI for outreach and content creation, while election officials tested it for voter communication.

Though fears of widespread disruption proved overstated—“the worst-case scenarios did not come to pass”, the authors note—the technology’s growing sophistication signals a need for proactive governance as its adoption is projected to peak later... [Read More: TikTok’s AI Algorithms Under Scrutiny for Election Interference in Romania] A key proposal is strengthening government capacity to manage AI. The report urges state and local governments to form advisory councils, citing models in Georgia and Utah, to assess risks and benefits. It also calls for funding to recruit AI experts—computer scientists, privacy officers, and more—to compete with private-sector opportunities. Training existing staff on AI use and cyber threats, like phishing, is recommended, alongside exploring efficiency gains, provided civil rights are safeguarded.

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