Projects of the AI, Media and Democracy Lab

Blue Sky thinking: The media of the future

This is the cluster to think big, and identify scenarios how AI can contribute to innovation in the media, new forms of media and journalism, such as more user-oriented forms of civic journalism or new business models for AI-driven services. The core question here is what kind of media do we want to see in 15 years, what is the role of AI and what needs to happen (in terms of innovation, competition, regulation, etc.) to get there.

Reshaping the relationship with the audience

This cluster research how the introduction of AI is changing public spaces, the relationship between media, users & AI and effects for democratic participation. How can AI-driven applications be designed in a way to earn peoples trust and acceptance, solve problems such as disinformation, but also how AI-driven applications can create new user experiences, e.g. through linked data, virtual assistants etc? Importantly, how can we use data science to better understand user engagement and participation, experience of new technologies (chatbots, VR, robot journalism) and thereby gain insights that allow us to develop the next generation intelligent and empathic systems. The Citizens Data Lab is part of this cluster. 

Public Values and AI

This cluster looks into questions of public and media values ad how core public values that the media stand for can be conceptualized, articulated and formalized in technology and institutional design. In this context we are particularly interested in ways of using AI in the media to promote public values, such as showing users relevant information and diverse perspective, optimising for joy of reading but also transparency and explainability.  

Creating the legal, ethical and organizational conditions for AI in the media

This cluster develops new protocols of responsible use of AI and data in the media and new sets of journalistic algorithmic ethics. It gives suggestions for regulation and new tools to tackle societal problems, such as filter bubbles, fake news, detection of deep fakes, fact checking and unlocking the long tail and media archives.  Another important question for this cluster will be how to create the conditions for fair competition in the market place of ideas, and the competitiveness of the media vis-à-vis large tech platforms.  The Responsible AI lab of AUAS is part of this cluster.