Knowledge Centre Data & Society launches AI voting guide

Knowledge Centre Data & Society launches AI voting guide

The Knowledge Centre Data & Society launched the AI voting guide on 30 April. The guide breaks down what the various political parties think about topics relating to artificial intelligence (AI) and data, such as education, work and inclusion. Answer the guide's questions, state your opinion and compare it with the parties' positions.

Should there be a homegrown ChatGPT? Should the public broadcaster be allowed to use AI-generated actors? Should political ads be allowed on social media? These are pressing questions that need political answers. The AI voting guide contains 25 statements about what policies the government should pursue on AI and how we want AI and data to be used at work, in education, in the media and in other things that impact our lives. 

AI should be a bigger election issue

"AI cannot determine which party you should vote for, but it could be a more important issue than it is now. Despite the huge focus on AI in recent years, it's not very prominent in the upcoming elections," says Rob Heyman, coordinator of the Knowledge Centre. "The issue deserves more attention from both people and parties. The AI voting guide aims to provide guidance on the issue."

Creation of the guide 

To create the guide, 46 statements were submitted to the seven Flemish political parties in March 2024. They could respond to each statement with "completely agree", "somewhat agree", "completely disagree" or "somewhat disagree" and provide up to 250 characters of explanation. Finally, 25 statements were selected in which the difference between the parties was most pronounced.

"Sometimes there are traditional left-right differences," says Pieter Duysburgh, operational lead of the Knowledge Centre. "In other cases, the differences are between the established parties and parties at the extremes of the political spectrum." 

AI: a new political topic

There are still issues where no clear pattern between parties can be discerned. For example, Groen, N-VA and PvdA agree with the statement that public broadcaster VRT should not use AI-generated actors, while only Vooruit and Open Vld believe political parties should be prevented from posting ads on social media. On these and other propositions, there is no obvious opposition between parties. In terms of AI, data and technology, parties sometimes take atypical positions, which may be explained by the fact that the subject is still new. With the AI voting guide, the Knowledge Centre Data & Society aims to put AI and data higher on the political agenda and raise awareness among citizens.

The AI voting guide was created by the Knowledge Centre Data & Society with Knack and Tree Company. 

Contact

Pieter Duysburgh, operational lead Knowledge Centre Data & Society

[email protected]

+32 486 79 42 04 

X: KC_DAMA

LinkedIn: Knowledge Centre Data & Society

The Knowledge Centre Data & Society is the central hub for the legal, social and ethical aspects of data-driven and AI applications. It brings together expertise and experience in the field, tailored to industry, policy, civil society and the public. The centre is a collaboration between three university research groups:imec-SMIT (VUB), CiTiP (KU Leuven) and imec-MICT-UGent. It is part of the Flemish Policy Plan for Artificial Intelligence and receives support from the Flemish government's Department of Economy, Science and Innovation.

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