Generative AI, Democracy and Human Rights

Disinformation is not new, but given how disinformation campaigns are constructed, there is almost no stage that will not be rendered more effective by the use of increasingly available generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools. As these campaigns become more sophisticated and manipulative, the foreseeable consequence will be further erosion of trust in institutions and a heightened disintegration of civic integrity, which in turn will jeopardize a host of human rights, including electoral rights and the right to freedom of thought.

In this policy brief — the latest in CIGI’s publication series Legitimate Influence or Unlawful Manipulation? — David Evan Harris and Aaron Shull argue that policy makers must hold AI companies liable for the harms caused or facilitated by their products that could have been reasonably foreseen, act quickly to ban the use of AI to impersonate real persons or organizations, and require the use of watermarking or other provenance tools to allow people to distinguish between AI-generated and authentic content.

Mar. 4 – 6:30 p.m. EST (UTC–05:00) – Waterloo, Canada: If you are in the Kitchener-Waterloo or Greater Toronto Area today, join us for what promises to be a stimulating evening in the CIGI Auditorium.

The Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) and CIGI are pleased to partner to bring Werner Herzog’s documentary Theater of Thought to Waterloo.

The screening will be followed by an expert panel discussing the implications of emerging neurotechnologies. Registration closes at 4:30 p.m.: reserve your ticket now!

In October 2024, the Oliver Wyman Forum and CIGI co-hosted the eleventh Financial Regulatory Outlook Conference. The objective of the conference was to cast light on and discuss the transformative shifts taking place in this “new age of finance,” as new capital providers are emerging to compete with banks.

In this conference report, Daniele Franco and Angelo Federico Arcelli summarize the discussions of the participants and panellists in attendance from the public and private sector, who gathered to consider the changing European financial landscape and address the question: Can the system deliver the investment needed for Europe’s growth while dealing with the climate, energy and technology transitions and the imperative to bolster defences?

In this opinion, Wesley Wark reviews the events of an “extraordinary week” in mid-February, which “will go down in history as the first shot in the new Trump administration’s design to revolutionize its relations with the world.”

Wark discusses Pete Hegseth’s address to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, Donald Trump’s 90-minute phone chat with Vladimir Putin, J. D. Vance’s keynote at the Munich Security Conference and, also in Munich, “the week’s finale”: remarks by retired General Keith Kellogg in round-table discussions that spurred “a growing sense of unease.” As Wark concludes, “America First, after this dramatic week in February, looks like a doctrine that abandons allies, abandons democracy, abandons principles, abandons its historic global leadership, and lectures and threatens while it does so.”

Rafal Rohozinski writes that “history rarely announces when it is shifting gears, but the first 30 days of the Trump presidency suggest that we are moving through a moment of profound transition.”

“The alliance between the MAGA ideologues and the tech ‘broligarchs’ — a new aristocracy of digital-age power brokers whose reach extends from finance to the very architecture of modern communication — has moved with remarkable precision to seize the commanding heights of the state.…The scale and the impact of this moment echo a historical precedent unseen since the Bolsheviks consolidated power in revolutionary Russia. The real question now is whether this transformation will take the shape of a controlled evolution or unravel into a chaotic rupture — one that fundamentally reshapes the fabric of American political life.”

In all sectors of society, AI is shaping decision making, accelerating information flows, augmenting surveillance, improving intelligence gathering, changing communications, redefining data management, empowering analysis and altering social behaviours. Modern warfare stands to be fundamentally redefined as well — and Canada’s military is adapting.

In this commentary, Kurtis H. Simpson, Samuel Paquette, Raphael Racicot and Samuel Villanove consider the extent to which AI is becoming militarized, the threats posed by adversaries, the opportunities for collaboration with allies and Canada’s way forward in what some may consider “the next revolution in military affairs.”

The Digital Policy Hub at CIGI is a collaborative space for emerging scholars and innovative thinkers from the social, natural and applied sciences. Here are the most recent working papers published by Hub fellows from the fall 2024 term.

Elia Rasky: “Examining Canada’s AI Policy Network: Where Does the Power Lie?”

Halyna Padalko: “Russian Disinformation about the US Election: AI Analysis of Narratives”

Follow the links on the Hub webpage to learn more about the Hub scholars and their work.

Mar. 6 – 10:00 a.m. EST (UTC–05:00): The Africa Forum at the BSIA, in collaboration with CIGI, is hosting a dynamic conversation on higher education reform in Africa, bringing together experts in higher education policy, post-colonial studies, African development and distance-learning innovation.

The one-hour virtual panel discussion is free and open to the public.

Learn more about the event and the panellists, and register here.