04-19-2017, 11:11 PM
The single thunderous lesson from the EU referendum is that new technology trumps arcane democratic safeguards. Artificial intelligence, algorithms and invisible money sources can overwhelm democratic rules. But a much more troubling narrative is emerging. The use of algorithms and artificial intelligence was probably a significant but invisible element in the campaigns. There is no evidence that Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm linked to the Leave.EU campaign, used botnets or any other illegal activity – it seeks to use the web to manipulate public opinion through legal means. Legal though such methods are, the sinister nature of this manipulation requires robust regulation.
What Brexit should have taught us about voter manipulation | Paul Flynn | Opinion | The Guardian