Artificial Intelligence in Public Affairs – A Smart & Frightening Future

Google launched Bard, an artificial intelligence platform, last month to be a solid competitor to Microsoft-backed ChatGPT. The latter’s capabilities have been questioned and applauded, but there is little doubt that the technology behind it will advance and grow.

ChatGPT, with its ability to pump out a diverse set of legible content, has been utilized by a range of individuals: from news producers to programmers to college students.

There is no question that Artificial Intelligence has already impacted the political and public affairs sectors. What we address here is the technology’s growth within, the fresh tools entering the market, and inevitable advancements – abound with opportunities and challenges.  

How will AI help inform strategies, generate content, and make workflows more efficient for the sector? What will its misinformation and bias friendly tools wreak?

This question drove our Founding Partner John Rohrer to produce the latest Fells Group Labs exploring this very question and weighing the pros and cons of AI in public affairs and political Consulting.

THE PROS

Innovative technologies – from the wheel to the iPhone – have made commerce more efficient, advanced information gathering, and made communication instantaneous. The following uses of Artificial Intelligence could prove helpful in the public affairs and political spaces:

Fighting MisInformation

Misinformation has flourished on a series of social media platforms. While some of this material is harmless or blatant, there is no question that false, misleading content online has led to dangerous consequences. The spread of COVID-19 vaccine and Stop the Steal conspiracy theories caused unnecessary harm to countless individuals and in some cases – death. If social media platforms want to seriously take-on sinister misinformation, they will have to utilize AI to monitor, identify, and stomp it out or reduce its reach. AI technology would have to function as a digital moderator of doctored photos and videos – reviewing content in real time. In some cases this fake media can only be identified by AI or other forms of technology. Unfortunately, human moderators can only review so much.

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The FDA tweeted this after some Americans had taken misinformation about COVID-19 remedies and prevention methods seriously.

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Research

Policymakers, Lobbyists, and other public affairs professionals are always doing research on everything from policy proposals to legislative bill statuses to elected official voter histories. As Google and ChatGPT advance their web scanning, search-engine inspired AI platforms, there may be opportunities for public affairs researchers to find answers to pressing questions quickly – instead of reading through congressional records or browsing for a legislator’s twitter handle. It would save time – something that is invaluable in the fast moving public affairs space.

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Graphic Design

Not everyone can afford a campaign graphic design team, but it doesn’t mean your public affairs or political content should be hard to read or yes, look bad. In the future, communications associates – bogged down with spreading messages across platforms and mediums – could utilize AI tools that assist them with creating branded social media graphics or web videos with ease.

These graphics were not created by AI – they were created by our agency, Fells Group. One day, similar graphics may be made by AI by campaign staff without opening Adobe Illustrator.

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Data Tools

As digital advertising and campaign data tools have become more and more advanced, AI could play a part in future campaign strategies. Eventually, campaigns could use AI to automatically deliver highly targeted advertisements and inform their strategies. For example, AI platforms – in the closing days of an election – could automatically deliver advertisements to those who did not vote early and track ad performance or recall across demographics and then adjust spending to certain audiences.

Public Services

The CitiStat program is a policy-tech achievement that helps municipalities monitor public trends and direct resources. Paper files were set aside and digital technology has filled the gap – making government research and decision-making more efficient. AI, if done ethically, can provide government entities, businesses, and non-profits with real time data analysis and remedial strategies. For example, Bus line routes or schedules could be informed by massive data gathering toplines that would be difficult for humans to discover efficiently.

THE CONS

As with most digital technology, Artificial Intelligence has a sinister side that can make the work of public affairs and political professionals harder or give bad actors within the industry dangerous tools. The AI of negative consequence:

Deep Fakes

AI generated videos of celebrities and politicians, commonly known as “Deep Fakes,” have gone viral. As the technology gets better, it is becoming harder to distinguish between what is real and fake. It turns out we may need AI to determine whether a video or image is real – the human perception may not be up to snuff. Public affairs and political campaigns require rapid responses to events, videos, and images. To avoid embarrassment or strategic errors, communications professionals will need to root out the fake and find the reality.

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Click here to see another Celebrity Deep Fake.

Echo Chambers

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Elon Musk have both endorsed limited moderation of political misinformation in the name of “free speech.” As AI technology advances and makes the spread of misinformation easier, expect social media discourse to become even less based in fact. AI also gives social media companies the ability to better serve organic and paid content to audiences who will be the most likely to engage with it – creating ideological silos that expand and exasperate dark echo chambers. In Wired, Thor Benson added another facet to this issue: people are looking for communities – and too often people look for them online, not at church, community centers, or schools. This phenomena expands echo chambers and makes them more extreme.

You can imagine someone who isn’t particularly politically extreme but does harbor certain fears about ways the country is changing being pulled in by extremists and becoming extreme themselves... people need community, and extremists can give them that.

Without better approaches to AI–Social Media integration, the ability for public affairs and political professionals to sift through the muck will only become more difficult.

Inadvertent Misinformation

As the utilization of platforms such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard expands, Public Affairs professionals will have to be careful when they gather information from them. There are countless examples of these systems getting it wrong. They may spit out answers quickly, but the user must determine the sources and verify data. Otherwise, expect some communications professionals to release false or misleading information inadvertently.

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It's clear that platforms such as ChatGPT need to be constantly updated and monitored. Until they are, they will more often than not be useless for gathering accurate information.

Bias

Humans are inherently biased and since we’re the ones feeding and configuring Artificial Intelligence, there is always a good chance that AI systems will mirror this fact. The tech sector, based in the United States and full of white administrators, isn’t going to get it right every time. People of color have found real problems with AI systems – especially in terms of biometric applications. Those who incorporate AI into public policy or services, must first invest in solutions to root out bias.

Complacency

While the United States has always given new technology room to advance, the Government has oftentimes missed opportunities to regulate and root out harmful facets of these exciting tools and platforms. In a concise monologue regarding Artificial Intelligence, Last Week Tonight’s Jon Oliver remarked how we must inform our approach to this new, far-reaching technology by looking at the failure to reign in the dark affects of Social Media:

"The nature of unintended consequences is they can be hard to anticipate... when Instagram was launched, the first thought wasn’t ‘this will destroy teenage girl’s self-esteem.’ When Facebook was released, no one expected it to contribute to genocide. But both of those things f***ing happened." – John Oliver

Oliver made clear that history could repeat itself with AI. We know now what dangers the technology could bring – now it’s time for Public Affairs, political, and Government leaders to step-up and ensure that we don’t repeat the same damaging mistakes we made with social media. Mental health, education, and even Democracy hang in the balance.