SIPA’s IGP to Participate in President Macron's Landmark Commission on Information and Society 

NEW YORK, October 3, 2023 — Columbia University’s newly launched Institute of Global Politics (IGP) today announced that it will be home to a new independent innovation lab on artificial intelligence (AI) and democracy as part of “Etats Généraux de l’Information” — a landmark initiative launched by French President Emmanuel Macron. The lab will address the challenges and risks that new developments in AI pose to democracies, and will be co-led by Camille François, a lecturer and senior researcher at Columbia SIPA, and Maria Ressa, a Nobel Laureate and one of IGP's Inaugural Carnegie Distinguished Fellows.

The project, which is ambitious and global in scale, will be executed in partnership with Sciences Po, the Paris-based research university and long-term SIPA partner. The lab will bring together a team of international researchers to envision, design, and test interventions that strengthen democratic societies and the rights of individuals in a time of accelerating change. The project will also convene a series of roundtables and consultations on issues of AI’s influence on democracy.

Through this work, the innovation lab will seek to advance concrete responses to urgent questions requiring collaboration between stakeholders and across disciplines. That will involve creating novel partnerships between the makers and operators of large language models (LLMs) and scholars who study the types of dangers already manifesting.

“We want to help bridge the knowledge gap between experts on democratic theory and the developers at the cutting edge of AI technology,” said François, who is also a 2013 SIPA MIA graduate. “Our goal is to translate these two groups’ most urgent insights for wider audiences and to shape policies that encourage innovation while protecting vital democratic and social institutions.”

François is recognized across Silicon Valley for her work on cybersecurity, combatting disinformation, and building research and safety teams. She previously worked as chief innovation officer at Graphika and was a principal researcher at Google.

The lab will examine the potential impact of AI technologies on electoral integrity. “Technology has broken our shared commons and public trust. With the rapid advancement of AI, it is crucial to consider disinformation’s impact on electoral integrity and to prevent the insidious manipulation of citizens around the world,” said Ressa, who will join the Columbia SIPA faculty in July 2024 as a professor of professional practice. She also cautioned about upcoming elections in 2024, including those in Taiwan, Indonesia, India, the EU, France, and the United States.

IGP is the ideal institutional home for the project, according to Ressa, given its data-driven approach to analyzing the potential harms of these language models, the global nature of the threat, and the resources available through Columbia’s faculty and students, as well as the city of New York.

“This is exactly the kind of collaboration we envision for IGP,” said Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo of Columbia SIPA. “The subject of AI really requires cross-cutting solutions from both academia and the private sector. We hope this initiative will shape the global agenda and conversation and expand our understanding of emerging AI technologies and how they intersect with democracy – both for better and for worse.”

For media inquiries, please contact Rachel Szala, Associate Dean of Communications and External Relations: [email protected], 212-854-0552.