Session to feature Dr. Christopher Wlezien and Dr. Connor T. Jerzak, University of Texas at Austin; Dr. Ananya Sen, Carnegie Mellon University, and Dr. Kokil Jaidka, National University of Singapore

2 August, 2024, Bengaluru: The Centre for Software and Information Technology Management (CSITM) at IIM Bangalore will host a panel discussion titled, ‘The Future of Elections: Shaping Research and Election Strategies through AI and Data Analytics’, on 21 August 2024, from 7 pm. 

This will be a Zoom webinar. To register, those interested need to click this link. Those who register, will be sent a Zoom link for the webinar. The streaming link is: https://youtube.com/live/1R_ajGoPGL0?feature=shareidka

The session will feature Dr. Christopher Wlezien, Hogg Professor of Government, The University of Texas at Austin; Dr. Ananya Sen, Alfred Blumstein Career Development Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon University (Heinz College); Dr. Connor T. Jerzak, Assistant Professor in the Department of Government, The University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. Kokil Jaidka, Assistant Professor in Computational Communication, National University of Singapore. Shivam Srivastava, Research Associate, IIM Bangalore, will be the moderator for the discussion. 

CSTIM will conduct the seminar as part of its initiative to promote dissemination and application of knowledge for the benefit of academics and professionals from all walks of industry. The panel discussion will be followed by a Q&A session. 

All queries need to be addressed to: csitm@iimb.ac.in

Abstract 

Recently, the world's largest democracy, India, concluded its general election. Other major democracies, including the US, will hold elections later this year. In this context, there has been considerable interest in the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Analytics and related technologies, and their power to revolutionize how campaigns are strategized and executed in these elections. 

Historically, public opinion and psychology have played a crucial role in planning election campaigns. For instance, the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2010 highlighted how Data Analytics could be used to influence voter behavior. At that time, AI had not even emerged in the advanced form as it has today. This raises an important question regarding how the nature of election campaign planning would change now, given the rise of AI and the history of using psychology and public opinion data.

The integration of AI and Data Analytics into elections is not a future possibility but is already a reality shaping how elections are researched and conducted. In the recent past, research has laid a strong foundation for the use of AI in elections, with numerous studies examining various applications of this technology. Machine Learning algorithms have been employed to predict voter turnout and election results, while natural language processing techniques have been utilized to analyze political speeches and social media content. Additionally, AI-driven sentiment analysis has provided valuable insights into public opinion and voter preferences. The synergy of AI and Data Analytics is not just a futuristic concept, but a present reality shaping how elections are researched and conducted.

Despite these advancements, ongoing challenges such as data privacy concerns and mitigating algorithmic biases remain critical focus areas in this evolving field. The speakers of the webinar will examine the diverse impact of AI and Data Analytics on elections, examining both the opportunities and challenges they present. Discussions will cover topics such as predictive modelling for voter behavior, real-time sentiment analysis, and the ethical considerations of using AI in political campaigns.

Attendees will gain insights into how these technologies can be leveraged to develop election strategies that benefit both candidates and voters, ensuring a more transparent and effective democratic process. The discission will explore how AI is transforming today's electoral strategies and paving the way for more informed and democratic elections in the future.

Speaker Profiles

Dr. Christopher Wlezien is Hogg Professor of Government at The University of Texas at Austin. He holds or has held positions, both permanent and visiting, at various universities in the United States and other countries. His primary, ongoing research develops and tests a ‘thermostatic’ model of public opinion and policy, current research on which considers news coverage and how it mediates public responsiveness to policy. 

His other major project assesses the evolution of voter preferences over the course of the election ‘timeline’, recent research on which considers variation in pre-election poll errors in more than 300 elections in over 40 countries since polling began 80 years ago. He has published numerous journal articles as well as a number of books, including Degrees of Democracy, The Timeline of Elections, Who Gets Represented? and, most recently, Information and Democracy: Public Policy in the News.  

Dr. Ananya Sen is the Alfred Blumstein Career Development Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. Before joining Carnegie Mellon, Dr. Sen was a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He earned his PhD from the Toulouse School of Economics.

Dr. Sen's research focusses on the intersection of technology and society, with a particular focus on platforms and digitization. His work is empirical, employing a variety of methods such as field experiments, natural experiments within observational data, and online survey experiments. He is particularly interested in analyzing the impact of digital technologies on firms, with a specific focus on media markets and society. His research also delves into the strategies adopted by platforms and users in response to digital disruption over the past two decades. His research has been accepted or published in leading journals, including Management Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Journal of Marketing Research.

Over the years, Dr. Sen has been widely recognized for his work. Most recently, he received the INFORMS ISS Gordon Davis Young Scholar Award in 2022, Management Science Meritorious Service Award in 2021 and 2022 and Management Science Distinguished Service Award in 2023. He received the NET Institute Grant in 2020 and 2022, two Best Paper Awards from the Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (WISE) in 2019 and 2021, and was named a Fellow of the Global Future Council on Media at the World Economic Forum in 2021. 

Dr. Connor T. Jerzak is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at The University of Texas at Austin. He earned his Master’s in Statistics and PhD in Government from Harvard University. During his graduate studies, he interned at Adobe Research in San Jose, California. During 2021-2022, Dr. Jerzak completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Linköping University in Sweden and served as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Gothenburg. 

Dr. Jerzak’s research, which spans Machine Learning, Economics and Political Science, has been published in various peer-reviewed venues. In 2024, he will be teaching at Harvard University.

Dr. Kokil Jaidka is an Assistant Professor in Computational Communication at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Her research focuses on public opinion analytics, examining the impact of shadowbanning on online discourse, and enhancing the quality of political discussions. She is dedicated to advancing the understanding of political communication through computational methods, aiming to foster more informed and constructive online conversations.

Before joining NUS, Dr. Kokil Jaidka served as a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Nanyang Technological University in 2018. She also spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, contributing to the World Wellbeing Project. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a Data Scientist at Adobe from November 2013 to September 2016, focusing on research technologies for the Adobe Marketing Cloud in Bangalore. Dr. Jaidka is a co-inventor on nine patents that are either awarded or under review at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).