WILL AI CHOOSE YOUR NEXT PRESIDENT?

Cinemavixion Review

In an era where artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping industries, the documentary "Will AI Choose Your Next President?" offers a compelling, albeit cautionary, look at its potential impact on the democratic process. The film delves into the innovative, and perhaps unsettling, methods employed by startups like Advanced Symbolics (ASI), which leverage AI and vast amounts of public social media data to predict voter behavior. It raises critical questions about the accuracy of these predictions, the pervasive threat to citizen privacy, and the broader implications for the future of democracy. The documentary highlights ASI's AI algorithm, Polly, which, without requiring users to surrender personal information directly, analyzes social media to construct demographic profiles and gauge preferences. The film notes Polly's purported success in predicting significant events like the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum. Set against the backdrop of the 2019 Canadian federal election, "Will AI Choose Your Next President?" tests Polly's capabilities in real-time, illustrating not only its ability to map public voting intentions but also how current events can sway these predictions. Beyond prediction, the film probes the ethical quandaries of this technology. It questions whether the insights gained from AI analysis will empower politicians to better serve their constituents, potentially leading to a more responsive society as ASI's CEO suggests, or if this data could be weaponized for manipulation by domestic or foreign adversaries. Ultimately, the documentary leaves viewers pondering whether politicians should tailor their platforms to social media sentiments, opening a Pandora's Box of technological and societal challenges we are only beginning to comprehend.