Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms

Symposium Date: April 10-11, 2025

Symposium Time: 9:30 AM – 3:25PM EDT

On April 10-11, 2025, the Knight Institute will host a symposium to examine the risks that advanced artificial intelligence systems pose to democratic freedoms, to discuss sociotechnical as well as technical interventions to mitigate these risks, and to identify ways in which these systems may be employed to support democracy. The symposium, “Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms,” is a collaboration between the Knight Institute and the Institute’s Senior AI Advisor Seth Lazar.

Read more about the participants and papers here.

The symposium, which is co-sponsored by the Knight Institute and Columbia Engineering, will take place in person at Columbia University’s Lee C. Bollinger Forum and will be livestreamed.

On Friday, April 11th
@ 11:10AM – 12:20PM EDT

Panel 6: AI, Freedom of Expression, and Democratic Backsliding
As large language models become more and more integrated into the information environment, alignment techniques designed to limit AI companies’ exposure to liability and public embarrassment are affecting the expressive interests of model users (including jailbreakers). At the same time, the community of research on AI risks is facing unprecedented political intervention into the content and methods of its research. All this is happening at a moment of rising authoritarianism and democratic backsliding. This panel asks how to square the values of safe AI with core principles of freedom of expression—preserving expressive interests against both private and state control.

Panelists

• Becca Branum, Deputy Director, Free Expression Project, Center for Democracy and Technology
• Aziz Huq, University of Chicago
• Xiangnong (George) Wang, Knight Institute
• Grant Baker, Freedom House

Moderator

• Katy Glenn Bass, Knight Institute

RSVP for in-person and/or virtual attendance.