Essays in the Category "Democracy"
Page 1 of 5
The AI Autocrat
How Technology Empowers—and Imperils—Dictators
Two weeks after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, the Russian TV Channel One editor Marina Ovsyannikova burst onto the set of the evening newscast. She held up a hand-drawn sign behind the anchor’s head that read: “Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They’re lying to you!” She shouted, “No to war!” until she was dragged away.
No one has protested the war on Russian television since then, partly as a result of tighter security and a general climate of fear. But in October 2024, Margarita Simonyan, one of Russia’s chief propagandists, gave another explanation. A growing number of the RT network’s anchors, she explained to an interviewer, are not real. “That face doesn’t exist. We generated the voice and everything else.” They were, she meant, produced by artificial intelligence. In a follow-up interview with the newspaper …
How American Political Campaigns Are Using AI—and What They’re Spending on the Tools
Though politicians are quiet about how they use AI, the book Rewiring Democracy examines how AI is starting to influence American politics
New campaign finance disclosure data shines a light on which US political campaigns are using AI tools and how much they are spending on them.
Candidates’, parties’ and committees’ spending reveals that AI is fast becoming an essential tool of politics. The candidates themselves are quiet about how they are using the technology in their own campaigns. It’s a sensitive issue that we have been tracking closely since we started writing our book, Rewiring Democracy, which examined how AI is beginning to influence politics. A September 2025 Pew survey of Americans found that more than 70% would think less of a candidate if they used AI to help write a speech…
How AI Is Helping to Write a New Constitution in the US Virgin Islands
This is the fifth in a multi-part series by Nathan Sanders and Bruce Schneier going into depth on real-world examples of democratic technologies from their book, Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship. Their first piece was about the Japanese digital democracy party “Team Mirai,” their second was about the Swiss Public AI model “Apertus,” the third was about the civic technologists of Open Knowledge Brazil, and the fourth was about the deliberative technology platform being developed by CrownShy in Scotland…
AI Is Hurting US Politics. Here’s How Candidates Could Use It for Good
The technology can help candidates listen more deeply to voters, as examples from Japan and Scotland show
There are plenty of signs that AI will make all of our experiences of the US midterm elections worse. Voters have anxiety about AI’s impacts on the country. Politicos are using AI deepfakes to spread lies. The White House is posting slopaganda.
Meanwhile, candidates are missing a real opportunity to use AI to make campaigning better. The technology can help candidates listen more deeply to voters’ concerns, engage constituents more inclusively, and formulate policy platforms that are more responsive to our input. There are vanishingly few examples of this in …
Rewiring Democracy: Citizen Science Leads to Civic AI in Scotland
This is the fourth in a multi-part series by Sanders and Schneier going into depth on real-world examples of democratic technologies from their book, Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship. Their first piece was about the Japanese digital democracy party "Team Mirai," their second was about the Swiss Public AI model "Apertus," and the third was about the civic technologists of Open Knowledge Brazil.
A generation ago, only a select few—a scientific elite—got to participate directly in the discovery of new astrophysical phenomena like exotic galaxy types or new worlds around other stars using the latest data from space telescopes or powerful observatories. This work was rarefied because the mechanics of astronomical observation were complex, the ability (and willingness) of scientists to distribute that data was low, and the capability of non-experts to understand and provide meaningful input to the science was thought to be very limited…
AI Use by the US Government Is Ballooning. And the Lack of Transparency Is Troubling
The list of government AI use cases has ballooned by 70% since Biden left office and includes many plans to hand over sensitive governmental functions to AI
On 14 April, the Trump administration quietly acknowledged the widespread use of AI to automate government processes. The office of management and budget (OMB) disclosed a staggering 3,611 active or planned use cases for AI across the federal government. The list has ballooned by 70% from the one published in the final year of the Biden administration, and includes many disturbing-seeming plans to hand over sensitive governmental functions to AI.
Scanning this list, many readers may find many causes for alarm. It represents a transfer of decision processes from human to machine on a massive scale over matters of individual freedom, public health and well-being, nuclear reactor safety and more…
Chilling Effects of Trump’s War on Free Speech Extend Far Beyond Campus Walls—and That’s the Point
This essay also appeared in Salon.
Younger Americans have soured on the second Donald Trump presidency, but they are not protesting it.
Despite an unpopular Iran war and an even more unpopular Trump administration, college campus protests nationwide have gone silent. And at many schools, student activism is virtually nonexistent.
This silence comes in the wake of a relentless Trump administration war on campus speech that has involved lawsuits, arrests, deportations and expulsions.
Reports cite a range of complicated factors for the restraint, from apathy to technology-induced incapacity. But as …
Rewiring Democracy: AI & the Struggle for Open Knowledge in Brazil
This is the third in a multi-part series by Sanders and Schneier going into depth on real-world examples of democratic technologies from their book, Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship. Their first piece was about the Japanese digital democracy party “Team Mirai” and their second was about the Swiss Public AI model “Apertus.”
It’s not an easy time for those trying to do good in the world, especially for those in the Global South. Financial pressures from the collapse of foreign aid, surging energy costs, and inflation combine with rising authoritarianism and a …
As the US Midterms Approach, AI Is Going to Emerge as a Key Issue Concerning Voters
There is a political divide over AI but few leaders are taking a strong stand. It’s time for that to change
In December, the Trump administration signed an executive order that neutered states’ ability to regulate AI by ordering his administration to both sue and withhold funds from states that try to do so. This action pointedly supported industry lobbyists keen to avoid any constraints and consequences on their deployment of AI, while undermining the efforts of consumers, advocates, and industry associations concerned about AI’s harms who have spent years pushing for state regulation.
Trump’s actions have clarified the ideological alignments around AI within America’s electoral factions. They set down lines on a new playing field for the midterm elections, prompting members of his party, the opposition, and all of us to consider where we stand in the debate over how and where to let AI transform our lives…
Japan’s Team Mirai Uses Tech to Bolster Democracy, Not Undermine It
Japan’s election last month and the rise of the country’s newest and most innovative political party, Team Mirai, illustrates the viability of a different way to do politics.
In this model, technology is used to make democratic processes stronger, instead of undermining them. It is harnessed to root out corruption, instead of serving as a cash cow for campaign donations.
Imagine an election where every voter has the opportunity to opine directly to politicians on precisely the issues they care about. They’re not expected to spend hours becoming policy experts. Instead, an …
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.