AI and Elections: A Global Call to Uphold Democracy

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping democratic processes and influencing election outcomes. AI presents significant new threats to democratic processes, including the multiplication of deepfakes, heightened cybersecurity risks, the emergence of manipulative persuasive agents, and the proliferation of synthetic data and fake accounts. 

As global leaders meet in Paris for the AI Action Summit, they should take immediate action to safeguard election integrity and uphold democracy from the growing threat of rogue national and foreign actors exploiting AI. 

To help policy makers navigate key global current AI challenges, IVADO and the AI + Society Initiative brought together an international group of leading experts to provide actionable globally-oriented policy recommendations to uphold democracy and electoral integrity. 

In the margins of the AI Action Summit, Prof. Catherine Régis and Prof. Florian Martin-Bariteau will be joined by members of the expert group in a side event to unpack the challenges and discuss the key actions recommended in their global policy brief “AI in the Ballot Box: Four Actions to Safeguard Election Integrity and Uphold Democracy.” 

The policy brief is available at aisociety.ca/gpb-ai. 

About the speakers 

Prof. Florian Martin-Bariteau is the University Research Chair in Technology and Society and an associate professor of law at the University of Ottawa, where he leads the AI + Society Initiative and the Centre for Law, Technology and Society. He is faculty associate of the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and was a member of the Council of Canadian Academies’ expert group on digital public safety.

Prof. Gina Neff is professor of responsible AI at Queen Mary University of London, and leads the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge. Her research analyzes the impact of digital environments on work and daily life.

Prof. Catherine Régis is a professor of law at Université de Montréal, the director of social innovation and international policy at IVADO and an associate academic member at Mila. An expert in AI governance, she co-leads the research program of the Canadian AI Safety Institute and holds the Canada-CIFAR Chair in AI and Human Rights.

Prof. Célia Zolynski is a professor of private law at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and a specialist in digital law and intellectual property. As coordinator of the AI Observatory at Paris 1, she focuses on AI regulation and fundamental rights. 

About the Global Policy Briefs on AI Initiative

The Global Policy Briefs on AI initiative is a joint endeavour of IVADO, Canada’s premier AI research and knowledge mobilization consortium at Université de Montréal, and the AI + Society Initiative at the University of Ottawa, aiming to provide policymakers with policy recommendations to navigate key global current AI challenges. 

For this first instalment, professors Catherine Régis and Florian Martin-Bariteau convened a group of leading AI experts from around the world to develop actionable globally-oriented policy guidance on the impact of AI on democracy and electoral integrity. The brief was produced following a week-long retreat hosted by the Società Italiana per l’Organizzazione Internazionale (SIOI) in Rome, Italy, in December 2024.

The brief is available at ivado.ca and aisociety.ca

This project was undertaken thanks to the contribution of the Fonds de recherche du Québec, the CEIMIA, the Canada CIFAR Chair in AI and Human Rights at Mila, and the University of Ottawa Research Chair in Technology and Society, and with the help of the Délégation du Québec à Rome and the SIOI for the organization of the retreat.