KT4D Module B: AI, trust and awareness - Introduction & Literature review

AI represents a new challenge in the way we live together as a society. Because AI challenges our ability to think collectively about reality and to grasp a rich and diverse reality, serious thought needs to be given to the place we want AI to take in our lives. The way knowledge technologies are used also structure the informational landscape and play an important role in defining our public space. In this module, we will examine the conditions of trust in the use of AI by companies and governments – making individuals vulnerable to strategies designed to change their behaviours. There is an imbalance of power between platforms, which have vast amounts of data about users (and can therefore manipulate the content they deliver), and users, who often have little understanding of how their data is used or how algorithms dictate the content they are fed (Lewandowsky & Pomerantsev, 2022). The aim of regulation must be to strengthen trust in institutions, a basic condition for the functioning of democracy. Proposals of ethics committees should be carefully examined in the light of the true point of view of the individuals, and the customs and habits of the societies in which they live. From this point of view, regulating the way social networks operate is particularly important. There is a duality in the influence of social media platforms on democratic systems: they provide both a very efficient forum for expression, but also undermine the trust placed in institutions that usually guarantee the reliability of information, as the origin of information becomes increasingly blurred.