Artificial Intelligence in Election Campaigns: Perceptions, Penalties, and Implications

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Jungherr, Andreas, Rauchfleisch, Adrian, Wuttke, Alexander
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Jungherr, Andreas
Rauchfleisch, Adrian
Wuttke, Alexander
author_facet Jungherr, Andreas
Rauchfleisch, Adrian
Wuttke, Alexander
contents As political parties around the world experiment with Artificial Intelligence (AI) in election campaigns, concerns about deception and manipulation are rising. This article examines how the public reacts to different uses of AI in elections and the potential consequences for party evaluations and regulatory preferences. Across three preregistered studies with over 7,600 American respondents, we identify three categories of AI use -- campaign operations, voter outreach, and deception. While people generally dislike AI in campaigns, they are especially critical of deceptive uses, which they perceive as norm violations. However, parties engaging in AI-enabled deception face no significant drop in favorability, neither with supporters nor opponents. Instead, deceptive AI use increases public support for stricter AI regulation, including calls for an outright ban on AI development. These findings reveal a misalignment between public disapproval of deceptive AI and the political incentives of parties, underscoring the need for targeted regulatory oversight. Rather than banning AI in elections altogether, regulation should distinguish between harmful and beneficial applications to avoid stifling democratic innovation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_12613
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Artificial Intelligence in Election Campaigns: Perceptions, Penalties, and Implications
Jungherr, Andreas
Rauchfleisch, Adrian
Wuttke, Alexander
Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
I.2; K.4.2; J.4
As political parties around the world experiment with Artificial Intelligence (AI) in election campaigns, concerns about deception and manipulation are rising. This article examines how the public reacts to different uses of AI in elections and the potential consequences for party evaluations and regulatory preferences. Across three preregistered studies with over 7,600 American respondents, we identify three categories of AI use -- campaign operations, voter outreach, and deception. While people generally dislike AI in campaigns, they are especially critical of deceptive uses, which they perceive as norm violations. However, parties engaging in AI-enabled deception face no significant drop in favorability, neither with supporters nor opponents. Instead, deceptive AI use increases public support for stricter AI regulation, including calls for an outright ban on AI development. These findings reveal a misalignment between public disapproval of deceptive AI and the political incentives of parties, underscoring the need for targeted regulatory oversight. Rather than banning AI in elections altogether, regulation should distinguish between harmful and beneficial applications to avoid stifling democratic innovation.
title Artificial Intelligence in Election Campaigns: Perceptions, Penalties, and Implications
topic Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
I.2; K.4.2; J.4
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.12613