Storytelling with Impact | Artificial Intelligence

As many of you know, the focus of my work is helping individuals discover, write, and share impactful personal stories. In my view, these stories — human stories — matter most, but some stories come from non-human entities. For example, businesses have stories to tell, as do cities, states and countries. You could also posit that the planet has stories to tell. And the fact is, the collective actions of these non-human entities have the ability to influence our individual stories. Whenever a new law is enacted, for example, it may alter our life in some way.

In this light I was recently reflecting on the state of democracy around the world today, and how different styles of government might affect our personal stories. This topic could fill thousands of pages, so my goal was to just get a sense of the big picture. As I’ve been playing with AI lately, I was curious as to the insights it would provide. So here goes…

If someone asked you what percentage of the world’s population lived in a true democracy, what would you guess? As I live in a democratic country, the notion of “democracy is the default form of government” quickly came to mind, but as I reflected on this question, countries such as Russia and China challenged that assumption. So I thought I’d ask ChatGPT for some guidance, and I must say, I got more than I bargained for after entering the prompt:

What percentage of the world’s population lives in a democracy?

ChatGPT: As of 2023, approximately 45.4% of the world’s population lives in some form of democracy, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index. This includes both “full democracies” and “flawed democracies.” However, only 7.8% reside in “full democracies.” Meanwhile, more than one-third of the global population, about 39.4%, lives under authoritarian regimes.

World Population Review – Democracy Countries 2024
Our World in Data – Democracy Index 2023

—-End of response

My reaction was one of surprise that the number of people living in a democracy was under 50%. What I didn’t count on was a further breakdown that talked of a difference between “full” and “flawed” versions of democracy. Maybe I’m the one who didn’t get the memo, but I hadn’t heard of this distinction before, and I had no idea that less that 10% of the world’s population lived in a “full democracy”.

So I asked:

“What countries are “full democracies”?

ChatGPT: “Full democracies” are countries that score highly in areas like electoral process, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. According to the 2023 Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit, examples of “full democracies” include:

1. Norway
2. Iceland
3. Sweden
4. New Zealand
5. Finland
6. Denmark
7. Ireland
8. Switzerland
9. Netherlands
10. Taiwan
11. Luxembourg
12. Germany
13. Canada
14. Australia
15. Uruguay
16. Japan
17. Costa Rica
18. United Kingdom
19. Austria
20. Mauritius
21. South Korea
22. France
23. Spain (Author’s note: recently reclassified as “flawed”)
24. Chile (Author’s note: recently reclassified as “flawed”)

—-End of response

Countries based on level of democracy

It’s a pretty small list, and with one notable omission, the United States. Really? How could that be? In my mind, America had always been held up as a beacon of democracy. But as I continued my line if inquiry, it made perfect sense.

So I asked:

Why is the Unites States not a “full democracy”?

ChatGPT: The United States is classified as a “flawed democracy” rather than a “full democracy” due to several factors identified in the Democracy Index:

1. Political Polarization

• High levels of political polarization and partisan gridlock have weakened the functioning of government. This polarization affects decision-making processes, leading to legislative stagnation and reduced government effectiveness.

2. Decline in Civil Liberties

• There have been concerns over civil liberties, including issues related to freedom of the press, voting rights, and minority protections. This has affected the U.S. score in the areas of political culture and civil liberties.

3. Electoral Integrity

• While the U.S. has a robust electoral process, challenges such as voter suppression, gerrymandering, and disputes over election legitimacy have impacted its democratic standing. The events surrounding the 2020 presidential election, including the January 6 Capitol attack, have further raised concerns about electoral integrity.

4. Public Trust in Institutions

• There has been a significant decline in public trust in government institutions, including Congress and the judiciary. This decline affects political participation and the perceived legitimacy of democratic institutions.

5. Role of Money in Politics

• The influence of money in U.S. politics, particularly through lobbying and campaign financing, has been criticized for undermining democratic accountability and equity in political participation.

These factors collectively contribute to the U.S. being categorized as a “flawed democracy” despite its longstanding democratic traditions and institutions.

—-End of response

The explanation didn’t surprise me, of course, as each of the factors listed were well documented. But I wondered whether this had always been the case, or if the demotion from “full” to “flawed” was a recent event?

So I then prompted:

When did the United States stop being a “full democracy”?

ChatGPT:

The United States was reclassified from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy” in 2016 by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). This downgrade was primarily due to increasing polarization, a decline in public trust in institutions, and concerns about the health of democratic norms.

One of the key triggers for the downgrade was the growing perception that the U.S. political system was not fully reflecting the will of its citizens. Political polarization, partly driven by the 2016 presidential election, led to greater division and challenges in effective governance. Additionally, issues such as gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, and the outsized influence of money in politics were identified as factors that weakened the quality of democracy in the U.S..

Another significant factor was declining public confidence in key democratic institutions, such as Congress and the judiciary. Trust in government had been falling for years, and the 2016 election cycle highlighted concerns over the fairness of the electoral system, which exacerbated feelings of disenfranchisement among many citizens.

This shift underscored a broader trend of democratic backsliding, as similar downgrades have occurred in other established democracies facing comparable challenges.

—-End of response

Once again, the fact that the U.S. is divided — some would say broken — along political lines has been talked about for many years. But was this demotion unique, or were there other countries that had experience a downward change in their democracy status?

So I asked:

Which counties have been downgraded from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy” in recent years?

ChatGPT:

In recent years, multiple countries have been downgraded from “full democracies” to “flawed democracies” by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), largely due to issues in governance, trust, and political stability. Spain and Chile, for instance, were reclassified as flawed democracies in the 2021 index. In Spain, concerns arose over judiciary independence, while in Chile, political instability and significant protests contributed to the downgrade. The UK has also been on the edge of a similar downgrade, driven by scandals around government transparency and rule-breaking during the pandemic, which weakened public trust and engagement.

These changes reflect a broader global trend of democratic backsliding, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic challenges, and rising populism in many regions.

Democracy Digest – Democracy Review
The Oslo Desk – Decline of Global Democracy

—-End of response

I came away with the feeling that democracy was on the ropes, as various forms of fascism, communism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism increasingly take hold. Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. How might ruling ideologies affect each of our stories? As I consider issues such as climate change, human rights, discrimination, gender equality, education and health, I can’t help but think that the world is heading in the wrong direction, and that there are many more personal stories ahead of us that will illustrate the pain and hardship such a world brings.

So I had one final request for ChatGPT:

Can you create an image that symbolizes broken democracy?

$What does the state of fractured global democracy look like?$

ChatGPT: Here’s an image symbolizing a broken democracy, showing a cracked statue of justice with tilted scales under a dark, stormy sky. This represents imbalance, weakened rights, and hope for renewal through small growth emerging at the statue’s base.

—-End of response

Note: comments not attributed to the author constitute my personal opinions.

You may be familiar with Yuval Noah Harari, the author of the global bestseller, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Yuval has a way of taking very complex subjects, such as the history of humans, and presenting important highlights, digestible summations, and tangible examples to illustrate his personal views. This time he’s examining how human history has been shaped by information networks, including its most recent incarnation as artificial intelligence (AI) in Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.

In Nexus, Yuval leads us on a recap of human history (sounds familiar), but this time as a way to view our common journey on this planet in the context of how human networks and information networks evolved in tandem.

Information is increasingly seen by many philosophers and biologists, and even by some physicists, as the most basic building block of reality, more elementary than matter and energy.

It was interesting to consider the evolution of cultures from the perspective of how human networks evolved in parallel with information networks. With oral cultures, “…realities were created by telling a story that many people repeated with their mouths and remembered in their brains.” Before the advent of any writing system, personal storytelling was our exclusive information network.

Image by Franz Bachinger from Pixabay

Similar to how humans act in the modern world, prehistoric humans told each other stories on a daily basis. Many were soon forgotten, but sometimes they were committed to memory. Stories deemed to be important were retold as a way to spread their message, or shared with future generations as a way to enshrine their culture.

But we must also remember that the retelling of any story will introduce some inaccuracies, so in a sense, stories are living entities that, over time, stray from the truth. And beyond the changes that happen to stories unintentionally with retelling, at some point in time, humans figured out how to tell outright lies.

Misinformation is an honest mistake, occurring when someone tries to represent reality but gets it wrong. Disinformation is a deliberate lie, occurring when someone consciously intends to distort our view of reality.

So our information networks have never been completely accurate, but with the advent of writing systems, it was possible to capture a version of the story, such that many people could read the same words. Once again, there was no way to know if what was written was true, leaving humans left to wonder whether any written document was accurate, or was simply preserving another falsehood. Regardless, it was common for the written word to be widely adopted as true. Government decrees and religious texts being two common examples.

But whether true or false, written documents created new realities.

Writing, once performed by hand, was revolutionized by the printing press, then electrified by technology as information was transmitted on radio and television. The birth of the internet allowed us to transfer files and even send emails, while the inception of the world wide web allowed us to be publishers, and for a brief moment, it felt as though personal storytelling — the first information network — was having a renaissance of sorts. Once again, however, the powers that be — both political and corporate — came to control a large portion of the digital landscape, thus shaping the flow of information, both true and false.

All powerful information networks can do both good and ill, depending on how they are designed and used.

Thus it follows that human networks can become ill when they buy into the disinformation promoted by ill-intended information networks. Communist / fascist / marxist / stalinist governments are prime examples. And though the western world has long felt immune to such a fate, disinformation networks, increasingly powered by AI, are active at this very moment, with the intent of dismantling democracy.

We should not assume that delusional networks are doomed to failure. If we want to prevent their triumph, we will have to do the hard work ourselves.

Artificial intelligence is often seen as just another technological upgrade, but it’s fundamentally different. To date, the stories we share, whether they are true or false, or intended to do good or cause harm, were created and disseminated by humans. With AI, we must now confront the fact that “nonhuman intelligence” has that same capability. Are we ready for nonhuman wisdom?

The invention of AI is potentially more momentous than the invention of the telegraph, the printing press, or even writing, because AI is the first tool that is capable of making decisions and generating ideas by itself.

Pause for a moment and consider that concept. Rather than only consuming our information in order to paraphrase its meaning, AI creating content on its own is akin to it being a nonhuman storyteller. I’m not sure where this capability will go, but I fail to see the upside. As AI can’t experience anything in the real world, how will it craft a narrative? For example, a hurricane hitting a major city will result in a great deal of information being created — facts and figures, as well as various predictions, followed by news reports, interviews, and first hand accounts. Only humans will be able to tell those stories, right? Or will AI be able to generate its own version of what is happening? And how will we know the difference?

Image by Guilherme Christmann from Pexels

More than ever, the personal stories we share are of vital importance. The only way that positive change has ever occurred is by sharing our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. But with AI, is our birthright of being the sole source of stories at risk? For me, that question was top of mind after reading Nexus.

If a twenty-first-century totalitarian network succeeds in conquering the world, it may be run by nonhuman intelligence, rather than by a human dictator.

We’ve already seen cases where AI was used by humans to influence elections and stoke hatred between different cultures. What will happen if humans are removed from the equation altogether? It may be a long shot, but I’m thinking we need to create as many true, personal stories as we can for AI to consume. My hope is that in doing so, we can inject AI with a sense of human empathy, morality, compassion and respect.

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The Story of a Flawed Democracy

AI, Information Networks, and Stories: Insights from Nexus, the latest book by Yuval Noah Harari