POLITICS AHEAD: ANTI-INCUMBENCY OR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (A-I OR AI)

The political landscape has shifted in the past 3-4 months as can be seen from the outcomes of recent assembly elections in several states, similar effects are anticipated at the national level as well. Considering this as the election season, the focus has been on democracy and political campaigns, particularly in light of last year’s state assembly elections, this year’s upcoming elections, and the forthcoming general assembly elections. The change in leadership in certain states has been linked to anti-incumbency. The term Anti-incumbency (A-I) is a prevalent phenomenon in India. What factors contribute to its sustainability? Anti-incumbency signifies that there is typically a level of discontent directed towards the current ruling party or the leader. This leads to the argument that the incumbent must outperform the challenger due to the inherent disadvantage of being in power. The widespread reach of any aspect of Indian politics across regional and ideological lines warrants a thorough examination. Regrettably, there is minimal public discussion regarding the factors contributing to this electoral trend in India. When we examine recent election outcomes of past few years, it becomes apparent that states governed by the BJP are more inclined to defy the trend of anti-incumbency. A prime example is Gujarat, where the BJP has maintained power since 1995. Similarly, in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has held control since 2003, with a brief interruption of 15 months between December 2018 and March 2020. The BJP also disrupted a longstanding pattern of anti-incumbency in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

Another interesting aspect noteworthy is when attempts to interpret an election outcome fall short, the familiar explanation of anti-incumbency often comes to the rescue. Parties often attribute their defeat to anti-incumbency, insinuating that Indian voters are inclined to vote against ruling parties. However, an analysis of electoral data since independence indicates that anti-incumbency is merely a lament of the unsuccessful. The data reveals that voters have both rejected and supported ruling parties in nearly equal proportions at the national level. At the regional level, there are states where incumbents have consistently lost elections over time, but there are also many others where incumbents have repeatedly won. Furthermore, these patterns are not fixed, as parties that have been in power for extended periods have been ousted, while voters have rewarded incumbents in states with historically low re-election rates.

This further strengthens the belief that very soon all players in India’s political domain whether regional or national will have to figure out, is it the Anti-incumbency factor they can rely on or understand the inference of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the domain.

Let us delve on this new phenomenon which has taken over all the sectors by surprise and making deep inroads in Politics too. It’s important to note the growing impact of Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the political sphere in India. Politics is a critical sector that directly affects the lives of all citizens, influencing the nation’s development and well-being. As AI’s significance is being debated across various domains, it’s pertinent to consider its role in politics and democracy.

The Chat GPT (Generative Pre-Transformed Generator) is a classic example of AI that gained popularity on social media as users shared various examples of its capabilities, such as travel planning, fable writing, and programming. Let us explore its evolution –

1. GPT-1, introduced in June 2018, showcased the power of unsupervised learning in language understanding tasks by using books as training data to predict the next word in a sentence.
2. GPT-2, released in February 2019, marked a significant upgrade with 1.5 billion parameters, demonstrating a notable improvement in text generation capabilities and producing coherent, multi-paragraph text.
3. In June 2020, GPT-3 represented a substantial leap forward. This model, trained on a staggering 175 billion parameters, displayed advanced text-generation capabilities and found widespread use in various applications, including drafting emails, writing articles, creating poetry, generating programming code, answering factual questions, and translating between languages.
4. The latest iteration, GPT-4, continues to show exponential improvement with enhancements such as improved model alignment, reduced likelihood of generating offensive or dangerous output, increased factual accuracy, better steerability, and internet connectivity, allowing real-time internet searches.

ChatGPT has made a significant impact across various domains:

• Customer service: Companies are using ChatGPT to automate responses to common inquiries.
• Education: ChatGPT is being utilized to develop intelligent tutoring systems that can offer personalized assistance to students.
• Content creation: Journalists, copywriters, and content creators are employing ChatGPT to generate creative ideas, draft articles, and even create poetry.
• Businesses: Various professionals are utilizing the chatbot to automate tasks such as drafting emails or writing code.
• Healthcare: Providers and staff can use the chatbot for various purposes, including clinical decision support, medical recordkeeping, analyzing and interpreting medical literature, and disease surveillance.
• Entertainment: ChatGPT can be employed to create video game storylines and movie scripts, write dialogue, and enhance gaming experiences. Since its inception in 2018, GPT has transformed the way we view and operate IT & Systems, Technologies, and Graphics. Now is the time to anticipate its impact in Politics and Democracy. AI, perceived as a disruption by many, has injected new momentum into various sectors, and Politics is no exception.

POLITICS AND AI:

1. AI as a tool has become a game-changer in political campaigns, enabling the development of prediction models that consider voter demographics, voting patterns, and issue preferences. This allows political parties and candidates to identify potential supporters and optimize campaign strategies, transforming how politicians connect with voters. It’s also valuable for mapping rival political parties and candidates in an election.
2. AI plays a significant role in managing social media and online campaigns. Tools like Hootsuite use AI algorithms to determine the best times to post content for maximum engagement, while Hadoop is popular for big data processing. AI also helps in monitoring social media sentiment, allowing campaigns to gauge public reaction to their policies and adjust strategies accordingly, optimizing costs to generate maximum response from a campaign.
3. AI is revolutionizing political fundraising by identifying potential donors via donor patterns and past history, leading to more efficient and successful fundraising efforts. Additionally, AI chatbots are being developed for personalized interactions, providing instant responses to queries and facilitating the donation process for the campaign.
4. AI has transformed booth management and polling methods, offering more accurate and real-time insights into voter opinions by analyzing data, including demographic information and past voting patterns.
5. AI can track the amount of money spent during a political campaign by identifying discrepancies, irregularities, and patterns in the spending patterns of politicians, later assisting in the preparation of financial documents and reports.
6. AI has further revolutionized political campaigning using Machine Learning for speech and debate analysis, providing insights into which topics resonate with voters and advising on communication strategies.
7. AI-Driven Policy Development will assist in policy development by analyzing large data sets to predict the potential impact of proposed policies, helping effectively in constituency management and development.
8. Future campaigns could use AI-driven virtual assistants to interact with voters, answer questions, and provide information about a candidate’s policies, making campaigns more accessible.
9. AI tools could be developed to identify and flag misinformation in real-time, ensuring that voters have accurate information about candidates and issues. Additionally, politicians will engage AI for enhanced security measures, instrumental in enhancing the cybersecurity of political campaigns and protecting sensitive data from breaches, addressing issues like deepfakes.

The latest data on AI-driven political campaigns includes the following findings:

• A 2023 study by the Center for the Study of Developing Societies revealed that 90% of political parties and candidates in India utilize AI-powered tools for their campaigns.
• A 2022 report by the McKinsey Global Institute indicated that AI could potentially boost voter turnout by up to 20% in political campaigns.
• A 2021 study by the Brennan Center for Justice uncovered the use of AI-powered microtargeting by political campaigns to personalize messages based on voters’ race, ethnicity, and religion. – A 2020 study by the University of Cambridge found that political campaigns are employing AI-generated deepfakes to spread misinformation and disinformation.
• In the 2022 US midterm elections, 70% of campaigns utilized AI-powered microtargeting tools. – During the 2021 UK general election, the Conservative Party spent £3 million on AI-powered microtargeting, while the Labour Party spent £2 million.
• In the 2020 US presidential election, the Biden campaign spent $8 million on AI-powered microtargeting, while the Trump campaign spent $28 million.

Furthermore, in 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was one of the first to employ AI-driven tools to personalize messages for targeted voters, setting a precedent for the integration of technology into political strategies.

In 2019, the extensive digital engagement in the Indian elections was evident as nearly 91 million election-related tweets were posted in the first phase alone. Social media monitoring platforms recorded over 1.2 billion mentions of the election, candidates, and political parties across social media platforms, highlighting the significant scope for AI-driven sentiment analysis.

Looking ahead, it is clear that Politics, Campaign, Elections and Governance are on the verge of getting re-invented. AI’s role in Indian politics will continue to evolve. However, it is crucial for policymakers, tech companies, and civil society to collaborate to ensure that AI is used ethically and responsibly, safeguarding the integrity of India’s democratic process, making democracy more responsive to the needs and aspirations of India’s diverse population.

References: ijrcs.org, forbes.com, technologyreview.com, firstpost.com