Governments regulate societies. Basic types of governments include autocracies, democracies, theocracies, monarchies, and anarchies; they provide regulation by different means and degrees of authority. The regulation they impose is enacted via combinations of permissions and penalties. All types of governments ideally offer societies the responsible management of security, infrastructure, common resources, the distribution of goods and services, and the continuation/transition/evolution of their regulation over time. All types employ a degree of regulation, ranging from conservative to progressive to libertarian. The best types of government achieve stability by implementing these responsibilities fairly and efficiently. Autocracies centralize power, increasing efficiency, but at a loss of fairness. Democracies distribute regulatory power, increasing fairness, but at a loss of efficiency. Both can provide stability, unlike anarchies, which attempt to maximize autonomy at the cost of stability. Theocracies and monarchies are forms of autocracy, simply with different rules for succession.
In a democracy, voting operationalizes both regulation and succession, so it is crucial that voting occurs correctly…and that elections are credible. Those are the two key requirements and determiners of a successful democratic government. This book, PROMISE – PROMoting aI’s Safe usage for Elections, addresses these requirements. Its 22 chapters examine all aspects of voting and elections in a democracy. The book is arriving at an important time: a time when the world is dividing between democracies and autocracies and the credibility of democratic processes is being challenged.
Some of the aspects of voting and elections are: who gets to vote and how eligibility to vote is determined; how votes are cast; how votes are counted; how voting is secured; how voting can be made unbiased; how privacy and anonymity are maintained while voters participate in the public activity of voting; and how power and control are transitioned as the outcome of voting. The large scale of voters – often in the millions – renders each of the aspects massively problematic and complex. There are hopes that technology can help to mitigate the complexity and improve each aspect: in particular, that artificial intelligence can be an integral tool in reducing the problems. This appears possible, because artificial intelligence has recently demonstrated success in diverse, complicated areas, from gaming to autonomous driving to drug discovery.
However, artificial intelligence itself has a problem of credibility.
The book is thus timely and thought-provoking! By lying at the intersection of AI and elections – both with credibility problems – the book examines the question of whether they can together help or harm democracy. I encourage you to read this book thoughtfully and judge for yourself the answer.
Dr. Michael N. Huhns
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Engineering
AAAI Fellow, IEEE Fellow
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC, USA