AI, a modern solution for our modern problems?
Artificial intelligence itself is not a whole brand new concept; In contrast, an essential core of the concept’s origins weave all the way back to the dawn of civilizations. The Greek philosopher Aristotle was one of the firsts to attempt to codify “right-thinking” that is, irrefutable reasoning processes. His syllogisms provided patterns for argument structures that always yielded correct conclusions when given correct premises. Nevertheless, the Development of Politology through history led to adopting this reasoning process. Accordingly, It becomes more facile to notice a link between the two concepts.
First, let’s understand what is AI, Investopedia gives an accurate answer:
Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. The term may also be applied to any machine that exhibits traits associated with a human mind such as learning and problem-solving.
The ideal characteristic of artificial intelligence is its ability to rationalize and take actions that have the best chance of achieving a specific goal.
The way AI works can be simplified. For instance, If we want to write a program that indicates if an imported photo is either an apple juice or orange juice. We have first to determine the factors that represent properties of each juice — such as color and Acidity —, then we test them multiple times so we can have the maximum possible of data and then we gather them into one model — in this case a linear model —. In this case, we can start training over and over our program. Following this process, We can come close to the truth.
Subsequently, we call this process ‘Machine learning’ — which is the first step to AI. As we explained earlier, the model depends heavily on the input data. Therefore, in case we have more data about ‘Apple juice’, the program would tend to indicate that the element is an apple juice and so on. In conclusion, fewer factors there are, less accurateness there is …
Perhaps, the AI’s concept is clearer at this point. Hence, one can assume how could it be deployed in politics.
Theoretically, Politics aims to serve society’s interests; However, All political systems that humanity knew, somehow, had a weakness in the application of their initial theories; Due to numerous factors but one of them is the most manifesting in all of them — Human inaccuracy.
Indeed, Human inaccuracy is a vague expression that involves miss-estimate, error margin, or even the psychological state of people in charge; Thus, Humanity is in need of an auxiliary to help it out improve the decision-making task; An assistant that is more accurate and masters the right thinking better than human.
AI could be the short answer, as it is the only tool that can master logical thinking, make the best predictions and avoid being affected by any external factor such as psychological state or self-interest.
In the beginning, Machines could be trained by facing more and more complex cases related to the desired domain. for example, we can train it by analyzing a big number of political events that happened in modern history, and their consequences. As the machine is more trained, more accurate it becomes . Yet, it could take a long time till the machines could be more trained than humans. Consequently it can be deployed as an auxiliary in the decision-making process.
By the same token, AI could assist courts which could lead to a real revolution in justice history. Furthermore, it can bring more stability to the world especially that injustice harms incredibly economy, aggravate the social reactions and affect the political reality ; Since the origin of most of the political problems is this two factors — Injustice and miss-estimate — , Then we can start seriously thinking about taking advantage of this technology.
As computerising administrations posed new problems (and solved other problems), The introduction of AI would also have side effects ; As we mentioned before, AI is based on input data, so if a certain factor is overwhelming, the AI would tend to choose the subject with this factor . For example, If AI is asked in a court case that involves two persons — one of them from a neighbour with a high crime rate — The AI process would involve a bias to the other side — and express more bias in case of lack of other factors — or if the AI has more data about aside it would pick that side up.
So the solution is to collect the same amount of the sides’ data and well train the machine . However, Before starting training it in a certain situation, maximum factors have to be extracted and analyzed — even factors of the factors — so that the machine would be more intelligent and could succeed in most complex situations.
In summary, Introducing AI in politics cannot be avoided; indeed, it would eventually be beneficial to humanity .Yet, launching this technology in such a sensible domain should be VERY cautious and not rushed. besides , Tech companies must well train those machines.
