AI-Driven Persuasion Technologies and Democratic Governance: How Reduced Persuasion Costs Enable Strategic Polarization
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Summary
This academic article examines how AI-driven persuasion technologies are transforming democratic governance by dramatically reducing the cost of shaping public opinion. The research develops a dynamic model showing that when elites can cheaply reshape policy preferences through AI, they face strategic incentives to either polarize society (creating a 'polarization pull') or create 'semi-lock' regions where opinions become cohesive and resistant to change. The key finding is that cheaper persuasion technologies recast polarization from an emergent social phenomenon into a strategic instrument of governance, with significant implications for democratic stability as AI capabilities advance.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledadvances in AI-driven persuasion sharply reduce the cost and increase the precision of shaping public opinion, making the distribution of preferences itself an object of deliberate design
With a single elite, any optimal intervention tends to push society toward more polarized opinion profiles - a 'polarization pull' - and improvements in persuasion technology accelerate this drift
When two opposed elites alternate in power, the same technology also creates incentives to park society in 'semi-lock' regions where opinions are more cohesive and harder for a rival to overturn
cheaper persuasion technologies recast polarization as a strategic instrument of governance rather than a purely emergent social byproduct, with important implications for democratic stability as AI capabilities advance
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