This course is not – for the most part – about how to regulate AI. Instead, it examines how AI can be used to improve policymaking and governance. The course will explore how AI can be used to develop, evaluate, and implement better policies; as well as the technical and organizational conditions that enable AI-driven policymaking.
Policymaking relies on evidence-based knowledge. Fuelled by the growing availability of digital data about social phenomena, AI systems can help policymakers evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of different policy options. However, the practical and theoretical challenges are considerable: AI is often used for prediction and data-driven forecasting, but how reliable is the knowledge produced by AI? What boundary conditions need to be set for different models and data analysis techniques? What units of analysis are relevant? What are the data sources involved? And how can AI models ‘learn to learn’ so as to account for new information as well as an ever-changing policy landscape?
The course will illustrate these themes through different weekly topics with concrete applications of modelling and predictions in each session. The course will focus on government and public policy, though we will also discuss wars and conflict, occupational change, populations and resources, climate change, economic openness, and stability and crisis. (The course does not require any programming or special statistical skills.)
At the end of the course, students will,
Weekly topics:
Former MSc SSI Course Director
Keegan McBride was a departmental research lecturer in AI, Government, and Policy at the OII. His research creates insight about the state in the digital age by exploring the interactions between the state, society, and technology.
Senior Research Fellow
Ralph Schroeder has interests in shared virtual environments and the sociology of science and technology. His current research is related to digital media and populism, climate change online, AI and social theory, and the internet in China and India.