Re: AI & Democracy

Dear Owen,
I have my personal W3C account registered through Rainbow Warriors Core Foundation dedicated to sustainable development and human rights.
We deal with democracy in every aspect of our work. The current trias politica model is seriously flawed.
Concepts  like good government, good governance, integrity, transparency and accountability, checks and balances require active citizen interactive participation in decision-making at all levels.
E-Government and eGovernance are a necessary part, but definitely require many more components to make a modern day society democracy work.
ICT definitely can contribute to creating an enabling environment for all of this, but it still takes informed action from citizens, i.e. humans to make all of the parts together work.
So the human centered future not unlike that in the science fiction series StarTrek is a mix of AI, augmented human intelligence and AGI (Artificial General Intelligence including non human species) used for an open, inclusive and equal rights based society (cannot use human rights, because it is anthropocentric).
So we are back to a previous post of mine. There are categories of artificial intelligence, which makes using category theory very useful in classifying elements that are common and elements that differ and how each category can be used to cover part of what we want to cover in AI-KR. Milton Ponson
GSM: +297 747 8280
PO Box 1154, Oranjestad
Aruba, Dutch Caribbean
Project Paradigm: Bringing the ICT tools for sustainable development to all stakeholders worldwide through collaborative research on applied mathematics, advanced modeling, software and standards development 

    On Saturday, April 27, 2019 3:59 PM, "owen.ambur@verizon.net" <owen.ambur@verizon.net> wrote:
 

 #yiv1720600271 #yiv1720600271 -- _filtered #yiv1720600271 {panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv1720600271 {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}#yiv1720600271 #yiv1720600271 p.yiv1720600271MsoNormal, #yiv1720600271 li.yiv1720600271MsoNormal, #yiv1720600271 div.yiv1720600271MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:sans-serif;}#yiv1720600271 a:link, #yiv1720600271 span.yiv1720600271MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv1720600271 a:visited, #yiv1720600271 span.yiv1720600271MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv1720600271 p.yiv1720600271msonormal0, #yiv1720600271 li.yiv1720600271msonormal0, #yiv1720600271 div.yiv1720600271msonormal0 {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:sans-serif;}#yiv1720600271 span.yiv1720600271EmailStyle18 {font-family:sans-serif;color:windowtext;}#yiv1720600271 .yiv1720600271MsoChpDefault {font-family:sans-serif;} _filtered #yiv1720600271 {margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}#yiv1720600271 div.yiv1720600271WordSection1 {}#yiv1720600271 Paola, it seems to me that AI should stand for augmented human intelligence  (HI+) rather than artificial intelligence, but in any event, it would be good if each of us could strive to be less artificially ignorant (A<I>) about information that is relevant to achievement of our objectives.  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/artificial-ignorance-owen-ambur/  BTW, I’d love to crowdsource my “Beyond Democracy” article, which I’ve now begun drafting at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2CaI4RDffxm9rqJJaIPzjSsU3n6IzBWDvZUPidQWXc/edit?usp=sharing   Owen   From: Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio@gmail.com> 
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2019 6:03 AM
To: Owen Ambur <owen.ambur@verizon.net>
Cc: W3C AIKR CG <public-aikr@w3.org>; Pradeep Jain <pradeep.jain@ictect.com>; Russell Ruggiero <russell_ruggiero@hotmail.com>; Hari Sandeep Reddy <harisandeep.vallela@gmail.com>; Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org>
Subject: Re: AI & Democracy  Thank you Owen  My view is that humanity has not yet fully matured/emancipated, ie has not evolved to dominate their mind and control emotions and not to lie (too much) etc  Political institutions reflect the state human condition reflecting strengths (aspirations, good intentions) and limitations (....fallibility  etc.list....)  Democracy would be nice but I am not sure we have found a way to materialise it as suchI believe that technology can help a lot,   Now we need to look at what we mean by AI  I don''t agree with what most people call AI at all,  for example I am struggling to explain to a friend that I believe AI  should extend and improve human capabilities, not replace them or attempt to reproduce human features to replace humans (that would be a disaster)  If we can develop an AI that can help humans to become better (*more evolved, better informed, less afraid of telling the truth etc) then I am sure AI can also helpwith governance  A lot of work to be done there, and that is why I take an interest in the subject  Lets us have a link to your article:-)  PDM      On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 12:00 PM <owen.ambur@verizon.net> wrote:
This article suggests AI may threaten democracy:  https://gcn.com/articles/2019/04/24/ai-threats-democracy.aspx?s=gcntech_250419 However, to the extent that democracy is majoritarianism (rule of the majority), AI might be used to increase its effectiveness – both in shaping the views of the majority (groupthink) as well as oppressing minorities who fail to adopt the majoritarian point of view.  A case might be made that not only the social media but also the so-called “mainstream” media have been doing so.  Conservatives certainly believe that to be the case, with more than a little justification in light of the well-documented biases of the media. Thus, democracy itself, unfettered, might be a  bigger part of the problem than the solution, and while Churchill may have been right in his time, he did not live in the cyberage.  https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government I’m thinking about writing an article entitled “Beyond Democracy and the Rule of Law” positing that we:  a) now have the means to do better than majoritarianism, and b) already have too many laws, regulations, and guidelines imposed from the top down in narrative format and far too few actual self-expressed performance plans published in open, standard, machine-readable format to be socially supported and enforced by peers. At a minimum, the tech giants who are helping authoritarian governments adopt AI should be expected to develop and openly publish algorithms addressing the rules under which they believe it may be appropriate for anyone to attempt to impose their will upon others. See also http://connectedcommunity.net/ & http://aboutthem.info/  Owen