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Science

Margin of Error: AI, Polling and Elections

May 27, 2021

The goalposts are about to move in the game of public opinion polling. This film examines how a startup called Advanced Symbolics (ASI) uses artificial intelligence (AI) and social media data to forecast voter behavior.

https://p.dw.com/p/3u1t8
Symbolbild I Programmcode I Android I Internet I Technologie
Image: Imago Images/Panthermedia/Kentoh
Symbolbild Künstliche Intelligenz und Algorithmen
Image: picture-alliance/K. Ohlenschläger

When people use the internet, they reveal enormous amounts of private data - often inadvertently. This data can now be harvested by AI to accurately predict, among many other things, how we will vote. Even without surrendering personal information, the new AI algorithm Polly, developed by ASI, combs social media to build profiles of different demographics and determine their preferences. This method has already led to Polly’s success in predicting both Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory and Brexit.

Parlamentswahl in Kanada
Image: picture-alliance/AP/The Canadian Press/J. Franson


With the 2019 Canadian federal election campaign as a real-time backdrop, the filmmakers put Polly to the test to reveal how AI doesn’t just give a detailed picture of the public’s voting intentions. It also shows how specific events can alter them.
 

Symbolbild Künstliche Intelligenz und Algorithmen
Image: picture-alliance/K. Ohlenschläger


But will knowing voters’ hopes and concerns give politicians the intel they need to respond and lead the way to a "utopian" society, as ASI’s CEO Erin Kelly claims? Or will governments and opponents simply use this data to mislead us? And should politicians even be reacting to desires expressed on social media?


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