Fears of a dystopian future ruled by AI-empowered authoritarians miss a key fact: While artificial intelligence can make surveillance and repression easier, no algorithm is perfect. Authoritarian regimes face hard choices about how heavy a hand to take, and every option carries risks. In the new issue of the Journal of Democracy, Jason Anastasopoulos and Jie (Jason) Lian explore the limits of authoritarian AI and how democracy activists can use them to their advantage.
Plus: How authoritarian middle powers are subverting democracy; why the global democratic recession should have come as no surprise; what we misunderstand about populism and how it affects liberal democracy; and much more.