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Artificial Intelligence And Politics

Lok Lyu

International Dept., the Affiliated High School of South China Normal University
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Lok Lyu

Seamus Murphy

Philosophy

17 April 2020

Artificial Intelligence And Politics

When it comes to robots, most people would think of moving metal, rectangular boxes in

their houses like those in the sci-fi movies. In recent years, however, the definition of robots is

getting closer to the A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), which combines data sets and advanced

computing algorithms to maximize efficiencies in softwares, programs, etc. Although robots are

technically our workers while we are the masters, they still have certain impacts on us and our

livelihoods, like the “robots taking over delivery/driving industry” sort of news. But can robots

take over some industries that require complicated intelligence, like politics?

Using A.I. in politics is longer fresh news. A lot of mainstream press has already reported

the use of data collection that are perfected by A.I. in terms of helping political candidates to get

on the most controversial and debatable topic to get attention (and potential votes) from people.

Because of this, some people retain a negative or conservative attitude toward the use of robotic

technology in politics, because they think it’s insincere.

Although the pros and cons of using robots in helping humans get involved in politics are

overwhelmingly debated these days, one aspect of using A.I. in politics is often neglected: how

A.I.’s themselves can be politicians and decision makers.

Lest you may be wondering: “Robots are not human, they do not have thoughts, and they

do not pertain to our political attributes. So how can they manage to do politics however smart
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they are?” It was the question I asked before, but it turns out that none of these issues listed

above is necessary for A.I.’s being political.

Carl Schmitt, a controversial philosopher and politician in Germany, indicated in his

book ​The Concept of the Political​ that the most important feature of being political is telling the

difference between friends and enemies. He said “Were this distinction [of friends and enemies]

to vanish then political life would vanish altogether”, and further argued that there are no such

political groups that exist without this distinction (51). Anyone that claims he or she does not

have enemy is but a weak person, as he or she gives up the power of defending and can but only

follow the protection of other political organizations that have the friends and enemies

distinctions, as “If a person no longer possesses the energy or the will to maintain itself in the

sphere of politics, the latter will not thereby vanish from the world...only a weak person will

disappear” (53).

Based on this concept of the political, robots (and A.I.’s) clearly have the ability to being

political. Certainly, they could also be the representation of a certain political entity, i.e.,

humans. Using their resourceful functions of researching and integrating, they can easily tell

which political topic would be the most attractive one to people, winning votes for themselves.

No human can do that so far (impartially). In addition, for humans, accepting data collections

from machines and algorithms is easier compared to accepting data collections done by human

politicians who operate robots, since we have our own intentions and considerations on political

interests, while robots are absolutely objective, which is very important. In short, robotic

politicians are not only more competitive, but also could be inherently better than humans.
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In addition to the robot’s objectivity, the robot’s greatest advantage is that robots could

create a highly integrated and perfect combination of human ideals, which so far has never

happened in human history. On the contrary, the history of human competition on politics always

ended up in a way that devastates the other side of the political party. The election of the Nazi

party in the 1900s was a great example. Assumingly, if the party that got elected (or came to

power through whatever means) wasn’t the Nazzi but the German communist party, how

dramatic would the world and human history change. Unfortunately, because of historical

factors, the Nazi did win the power, controlling the German lands.

But if we lay out all historical factors at that time, we would see that the Nazi didn’t

100% represent the thoughts and ideas of all Germans in that particular period, neither did any

political parties in human history (because of human’s egocentrism). Robots (and A.I.’s), in an

imaginary world, would perform otherwise. Because unlike humans, these computers and

machines do not have the peculiar egocentrism that humans do have. They also do not have the

incentive to cheat and lie. They don’t eat. They don’t sleep. They don’t want to make more

money. And they don’t want anything that we humans want desperately. The most they can do is

to analyze which political decision would cover up the interests of most people. These decisions

would be very responsive, popular, and thus successful.

Despite such advantages, some people these days still hesitate in front of technologies

like my grandma, concerning a lot of factors like data security. In his article “Is Google Making

Us Stupid?”, author and expert Nicholas Carr points out that large tech companies could use the

opportunity to steal people’s privacy, thereby generating huge profits. We can find similar

arguments everywhere in these kinds of tech-phobia articles. The key idea of such a saying is
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that humans are naturally bad, and therefore would only consider their own interests so if

there’re profits, egocentrism would drive people to do anything to achieve them. Admittedly, this

type of argument is true in some aspects in life, but it is not true when it comes to robots, A.I.’s,

and new techs in which security is considered when they were designed. In other words,

advanced technology is not the variable that humans could easily control unless for developers.

If it is readily controllable, it is not intelligent enough. To put it in a real life example, a person

cannot mandate a robot to have its own analysis and decision making while telling it what

exactly the decision should be. It’s like you can’t have your cake and eat it at the same time. If

someone stubborn actually tries that, he should be ready for fixing infinite bugs and program

errors because of algorithmic compatibility (as a computer science major student, I’ve

encountered this type of error for several times and it always drives me crazy).

On the contrary, in his article “Get Smarter”, Jamais Cascio suggests that we humans

would adopt the change with new technology naturally. Cascio cites many examples from the

period of the inventions like writing and recording to the recent smart-phone era, saying that the

fear that new technology would topple human’s regime has never been realized (when

photography was invented, the fear that artists would lose their jobs hasn’t come true even in

2020). In the opposite, using advanced technology, we humans could possibly learn and adopt

the advantages of A.I.’s, including thinking more objectively and impartially. Most importantly,

that is what politicians should do ever since this occupation came to exist. (Interesting fact:

according to some speculations, the richest person in Russia is the president of Russia, ​Vladimir

Putin.)​ The political world may be purified and become a better place with A.I.’s being our

political leaders.
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Although the title of “Robotic Politician” is really conceptual, it can adjust and progress

with time. Looking deep into human history, one can easily discern the change of political

pattern: from the Stone Age to the period of feudalism, from the period of feudalism to the age of

imperialism, and from the age of imperialism to our current world of capitalism and socialism:

politics always changes with time.

Finally, In order for these e-politicians to work, it is important to check and predict their

ability to stay up (update) with time. Therefore, a certain scenario or context is needed. In this

case, the political ideology changes occurred after WWII would be the perfect background, like

when the concept of “Social Democracy” or “Democratic Socialism” emerged. Let’s begin with

the definition of Social Democracy:

“[Social Democracy] ​generally espoused state regulation, rather than state ownership, of

the means of production and extensive social welfare programs. Based on 19th-century

socialism and the tenets of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, social democracy shares

common ideological roots with communism but eschews its militancy and

totalitarianism.” (Augustyn)

Let’s examine these terms one by one and check whether our e-politicians can adapt these terms.

First, state regulations vs. state ownership. Using robots as our politicians, we can

countlessly use mathematical models to solve problems. For instance, if we want to practice

Bernie Sanders’ “Health Care For All”, we are going to need large amounts of public hospitals.

To regulate these hospitals, an AI model can be designed and devised throughout time.

E-politicians are also going to stipulate new policies and improvise regulations

unproblematically based on their advanced and complicated algorithms.

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Second, the core of Social Democracy: achieving the ideals of Socialism or Communism.

(Disclaimer: although we are talking about socialism, the democracy part cannot be ignored as

well.) In the Weimar Republic, the overdue focuses on the former part led to some disastrous

scenes:

“​In the German lands [of the Weimar period], where there were new restrictions on

liberty of thought to ward off ‘revolutionary posts and demagogic associations’, the press

and post were tightly censored; universities were kept under surveillance and secret

policemen eavesdropped on seditious gatherings in taverns and cafes.” (Mazower 6)

The Weimar period was full of crashes between the ideology of American Democracy and that

of the new-emerged Socialism and Extremism (Nazism). The ironic scene depicted above

happened all the time.

Again assumingly, with A.I.’s as our political leaders, things might have been different. If

Paul von Hindenburg, the second president of the Weimar Republic, for example, was an

intelligent robot, he might never try to restrict or censor anyone and give out his power to Hitler

at the end of the days. Because A.I.’s would just be doing their jobs and maximize social

interests, while humans are always fighting each other.

From the two (of course imaginary) scenarios above, we can see the most important

feature of e-politicians: adaptability. As a result of which, they are presumably successful in

these two scenarios.

In summary, because A.I.’s are perfectly rational, not driven by any human-like

self-interest, and are well-adapted with time and social progression, it is very likely that they are

going to dominate politics for us in the future. There are many good things about this future, as
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we may just “sit back and enjoy the ‘AI-Precision-Decision’ that maximizes social efficiencies

and interests without us fighting each other and wasting resources that we are paying for (taxes)”

(Raul). We may also lose something, though, like inventing countless witticisms from the

hilarious speeches of our politicians, like those from Mr. Donald J. Trump.
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Works Cited

Augustyn, Adam, et al. “Social Democracy”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 December 2016.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-democracy. Access on 6 March 2020.

Cascio, Jamais. “Get Smarter”. The Atlantic, 2009.

Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. The Atlantic, 2008.

Hakli, Raul. ​Sociality and Normativity for Robots.​ Springer, 2017.

Mazower, Mark. ​Governing The World​. The Penguin Group, 2013.

“The Concert of Europe. 1815-1914”, Page 6.

Schmitt, Carl. ​the Concept of the political​. The University of Chicago Press, 2007, published.