Jillian Fisher - The Power of Bias: How AI Influences Political Decision-Making ...

The Power of Bias: How AI Influences Political Decision-Making and What We Can Do About It This session is brought to you by the Cohere For AI Open Science Community - a space where ML researchers, engineers, linguists, social scientists, and lifelong learners connect and collaborate with each other. Thank you to our Community Leads for organizing and hosting this event. If you’re interested in sharing your work, we welcome you to join us! Simply fill out the form at https://forms.gle/ALND9i6KouEEpCnz6 to express your interest in becoming a speaker. Join the Cohere For AI Open Science Community to see a full list of upcoming events: https://tinyurl.com/C4AICommunityApp. AI language models are increasingly integral to decision-making, communication, and public discourse, yet their inherent biases pose significant risks to impartiality and fairness. This talk delves into the findings of the paper Biased AI Can Influence Political Decision-Making, which demonstrates how partisan bias in AI can sway political decisions, even overriding individuals’ pre-existing partisanship. Through interactive experiments, the study highlights the subtle yet profound ways biased AI can alter opinions and amplify societal polarization. Beyond identifying these risks, the research also underscores the importance of mitigation strategies to reduce the influence of biased AI. One promising finding is that prior knowledge about AI and its potential biases can significantly decrease susceptibility, suggesting a critical role for public education in empowering users to critically assess AI-generated content. These strategies, combined with advancements in AI alignment and bias detection, offer a path forward to ensure language models serve as tools for fairness and inclusivity rather than instruments of division. Jillain Fisher is a Statistics + CSE PhD student at the University of Washington researching AI alignment, safety, and impact. Advised by Yejin Choi in the Paul G. Allen Sch