Co-Opting AI: Campaigning

NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, Sloane Lab, and the Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia invite you to a new discussion in the series “Co-Opting AI.” This will be a completely virtual event. This event will discuss the role data-driven systems and AI play in political campaigning and the democratic process at large—particularly in advent of generative AI and in the context of the 2024 US presidential election.

Please register for the event here.

Cody Buntain is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies and a research affiliate at NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics. Dr. Buntain studies online information and social media and how we use these spaces during crises and times of political unrest. His focus is on improving information quality, preventing manipulation, and enhancing resilience in online spaces, so that these spaces may serve to bring us together and keep us informed rather than driving us apart and opening us to harm. His recent work focuses on social media use is conflict spaces, emerging areas of influence, and the use visual media in online political engagement and manipulation. Other studies include the role of recommendation systems as a method of content moderation and its effects across multiple online spaces, as well as the impact of deplatforming on information and engagement quality online. Dr. Buntain’s research has been covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, WIRED, and others.

Bertrall Ross is a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, Co-Director of the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy, and founder of the Designing Democracy Project.  He teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, constitutional theory, election law, administrative law and statutory interpretation.  Ross’ research is driven by a concern about democratic responsiveness and accountability, as well as the inclusion of marginalized communities in administrative and political processes. His past scholarship has been published in several books and journals and two of his articles were selected by the Yale/Harvard/Stanford Junior Faculty Forum.   Prior to joining the Virginia faculty, Ross taught at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where he received the Rutter Award for Teaching Excellence. He has also been awarded the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, the Princeton University Law and Public Affairs Fellowship, the Columbia Law School Kellis Parker Academic Fellowship and the Marshall Scholarship. Ross is currently serving on the Administrative Conference of the United States and the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. Ross earned his undergraduate degree in international affairs and history from the University of Colorado, Boulder; his graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs; and his law degree from Yale Law School. After law school, he clerked for Judge Dorothy Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Myron Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Mona Sloane, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Data Science and Media Studies at the University of Virginia (UVA). As a sociologist, she studies the intersection of technology and society, specifically in the context of AI design, use, and policy. She also convenes the Co-Opting AI series and serves as the editor of the Co-Opting AI book series at the University of California Press as well as the Technology Editor for Public Books. At UVA, Mona runs Sloane Lab which conducts empirical research on the implications of technology for the organization of social life. Its focus lies on AI as a social phenomenon that intersects with wider cultural, economic, material, and political conditions. The lab spearheads social science leadership in applied work on responsible AI, public scholarship, and technology policy. More here: monasloane.org.

The Co-Opting AI event series is convened by Mona Sloane. It is hosted by NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, UVA’s Karsh Institute of Democracy, and Sloane Lab.