Saving democracy: The need for privacy in the age of AI

Several arguments alarmingly predicting the demise of democracy have been advanced recently. Each is premised on a detrimental role of information technology: social networking making divisive fake news easy to target and promulgate; so-called “deep fakes” undermining the credibility of audio, photos, video and news generally; and AI probing and manipulating individuals to such an extent that voter choice becomes almost meaningless. This keynote aims to show how proven computing techniques can be adapted to effectively counter those very threats to democracy.