Why does AI hinder democratization?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chu, C. Y. Cyrus; Chang, Juin-Jen; Lin, Chang-Ching
• 署名单位: Academia Sinica - Taiwan
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-11025
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2423266122
• 发表日期: 2025-05-13
• 关键词: dynastic cycle; TECHNOLOGY

摘要

This paper examines the relationship between democrati zation and the development of AI and information and communication technology (ICT). Our empirical evidence shows that in the past 10 y, the advancement of AI/ICT has hindered the development of democracy in many countries around the world. Given that both the state rulers and civil society groups can use AI/ICT, the key that determines which side would benefit more from the advancement of these technologies hinges upon technology complementarity. In general, AI/ICT would be more complementary to the government rulers because they are more likely than civil society groups to access various administrative big data. Empirically, we propose three hypotheses and use statistical tests to verify our argument. Theoretically, we prove a proposition, showing that when the above-mentioned complementarity assumption is true, the AI/ ICT advancements would enable rulers in authoritarian and fragile democratic countries to achieve better control over civil society forces, which leads to the erosion of democracy. Our analysis explains the recent ominous development in some fragile-democracy countries.