Why does AI hinder democratization?

Why does AI hinder democratization?

Chu, C Y Cyrus; Chang, Juin-Jen; Lin, Chang-Ching
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2025 Vol. 122 pp. e2423266122
14
chu2025why

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between democratization 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.

Citation

ID: 281848
Ref Key: chu2025why
Use this key to autocite in SciMatic or Thesis Manager

References

Blockchain Verification

Account:
NFT Contract Address:
0x95644003c57E6F55A65596E3D9Eac6813e3566dA
Article ID:
281848
Unique Identifier:
10.1073/pnas.2423266122
Network:
Scimatic Chain (ID: 481)
Loading...
Blockchain Readiness Checklist
Authors
Abstract
Journal Name
Year
Title
5/5
Creates 1,000,000 NFT tokens for this article
Token Features:
  • ERC-1155 Standard NFT
  • 1 Million Supply per Article
  • Transferable via MetaMask
  • Permanent Blockchain Record
Blockchain QR Code
Scan with Saymatik Web3.0 Wallet

Saymatik Web3.0 Wallet