No For my academic keynote, “The safety of generative AI in the public service” today at HFESA Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia conference, I took the conversation back 100yrs, to think about the role of facts, technology, politics and democratic participation in government decision making.
Walter Lippman (1922) commented that an aristocrat was supposedly qualified to rule based on having a good heart, reasoning mind and balanced judgment and didn’t have to think too much about where the facts came from.
Isaiah Berlin (1958) disparaged technocrats who relied on machines, bureaucracies and automation to suggest courses of action, rather than operating contextually within unreconcilable value conflicts.
Jürgen Habermas’ (1968) acknowledged the importance of scientific advisors to government, yet was a champion of discourse and hermeneutics with the citizenry.
…and finally the ironies of digital media on democratic participation with a 2023 Nature article shows more democratic participation, polarisation and populism; more misinformation, echo chambers and knowledge; more exposure, hate, and expression… and less trust.
Interesting to consider AI safety guardrails and ongoing monitoring and testing of AI in situ from the point of view of political, technical and social history of democratic participation.
References
Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, 1922
Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958
Jürgen Habermas, The Scientization of Politics and Public Opinion, 1968
Lorenz-Spreen, et.al . (2023). A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy. Nature human behaviour, 7(1), 74-101. https://lnkd.in/g6SymSEH
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