Can Democracy Survive Ai Sociologica Mctd Ac Uk

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 6, 2025, 11:10 AM

can democracy survive ai sociologica mctd ac uk

Our Executive Director Professor Gina Neff has published a new article in the latest issue of Sociologica: International Journal for Sociological Debate examining the fundamental tension between AI and democratic governance. She argues that AI’s inherent tendencies toward centralization and control pose significant challenges to democratic societies. AI advancements at present embody four key anti-democratic characteristics: 1) centralization and control, 2) ideologies of unchecked economic growth, 3) efficiency over accountability, and 4) absolute control coupled with unaccountable power. Published on the heels of Donald Trump’s re-election – followed by an almost immediate revocation of President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on AI risks and announcement of a new plan to invest $500 billion... Professor Neff predicts a gutting of the rights-based approach to AI, the end of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting, and global cyberwars. But there is some hope to be found in how people adopt, resist, and modify AI tools, and unignorable threats like the climate crisis may force new kinds of public accountabilities about AI.

Ultimately, whether democracy can survive AI will depend on us – moving fast and breaking things is not a way to sustainable build digital futures. Note: The ideas and arguments presented in this article were first delivered at the Center on Organizational Innovation‘s 25-year Anniversary event at Columbia University. Gina Neff is Professor of Responsible AI at the Digital Environment Research Institute at Queen Mary University London (United Kingdom) and Director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy at the University of... This essay examines the fundamental tension between artificial intelligence technologies and democratic governance, arguing that AI’s inherent tendencies toward centralization and control pose significant challenges to democratic societies. Drawing on science and technology studies and critical analyses of technological politics, I argue that current AI implementations embody four key anti-democratic characteristics: they represent powerful technologies of centralization and control; they fuel ideologies... The analysis synthesizes historical parallels between computing and control, contemporary developments in AI infrastructure, and emerging policy frameworks to demonstrate how AI’s technical architecture and commercial implementation systematically undermine democratic values of transparency, accountability,...

Through examination of recent political developments and corporate practices, the essay reveals how AI’s centralization of power and erosion of public oversight threaten democratic institutions. I conclude that democracy’s survival in an AI-driven future depends on reimagining and rebuilding digital technologies with democratic accountability at their core, requiring new frameworks for public oversight and corporate governance. Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1993). A Political and Economic Case for the Democratic Enterprise. Economics and Philosophy, 9(1), 75–100.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266267100005125 Center on Organizational Innovation (COI). Who We Are. https://coi.sociology.columbia.edu/content/who-we-are (Accessed January 1, 2025). Caro, R.A. (1974).

The Power Broker. Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Democracy’s survival depends on reimagining and rebuilding technologies with democratic accountability at their core. If we leave the decisions about what to build to the titans of tech, the results will be anti-democratic and built for private over public gain, says Gina Neff. What is the best framework for the global governance of AI?

How do we respond to tech companies who argue against regulation? Is our current pace of technological change ultimately greater than our ability to manage it? These are some of the pressing questions my team and I grapple with at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. In my recent paper, Can Democracy Survive AI, published on the heels of the UK’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, I explain the fundamental challenges that AI poses to democracies. In some ways, AI can be seen as inherently anti-democratic. As it exists now, AI innovation is accelerating centralisation and control, fuelling ideologies of trade-offs between regulation and economic growth, prioritising efficiency over accountability, and enabling absolute control coupled with unaccountable power.

The story about AI that people are currently telling is one about economic growth and how technology will work for us. However, there are many other possible futures that help us frame these potentially transformative technologies, for example as supporting artists and creators, rather than threatening their livelihoods. I came across a paper about some alleged tension between AI and democratic governance according to the University of Cambridge and some obscure Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy.(Minderoo? I had to look up what that is, but I am still not entirely sure what the connection is). A centre for technology, but biased against AI. Neff, G.

(2024). Can Democracy Survive AI?. Sociologica, 18(3), 137–146. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/21108 “This essay examines the fundamental tension between artificial intelligence technologies and democratic governance, [..]”. Huh?

That term ‘democratic governance’ irks me as a misnomer. There is no democratic governance: This essay examines the fundamental tension between artificial intelligence technologies and democratic governance, arguing that AI’s inherent tendencies toward centralization and control pose significant challenges to democratic societies. Drawing on science and technology studies and critical analyses of technological politics, I argue that current AI implementations embody four key anti-democratic characteristics: they represent powerful technologies of centralization and control; they fuel ideologies... The analysis synthesizes historical parallels between computing and control, contemporary developments in AI infrastructure, and emerging policy frameworks to demonstrate how AI’s technical architecture and commercial implementation systematically undermine democratic values of transparency, accountability,... Through examination of recent political developments and corporate practices, the essay reveals how AI’s centralization of power and erosion of public oversight threaten democratic institutions.

I conclude that democracy’s survival in an AI-driven future depends on reimagining and rebuilding digital technologies with democratic accountability at their core, requiring new frameworks for public oversight and corporate governance. As artificial intelligence continues to advance at breakneck speed and world powers vie against each other in the AI arms race, democracies are searching for ways to control a technology that is transforming our... Read the following Journal of Democracy essays from leading AI experts on the dangers that lie ahead and how we might stave off a crisis. The Real Dangers of Generative AI Advanced AI faces twin perils: the collapse of democratic control over key state functions or the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of the few. Avoiding these risks will require new ways of governing. Danielle Allen and E.

Glen Weyl AI and Catastrophic Risk AI with superhuman abilities could emerge within the next few years, and there is currently no guarantee that we will be able to control them. We must act now to protect democracy, human rights, and our very existence. Yoshua Bengio How AI Threatens Democracy Generative AI can flood the media, internet, and even personal correspondence, sowing confusion for voters and government officials alike. If we fail to act, mounting mistrust will polarize our societies and tear at our institutions.

Sarah Kreps and Doug Kriner

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Https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266267100005125 Center On Organizational Innovation (COI). Who We Are. Https://coi.sociology.columbia.edu/content/who-we-are