Artificial Intelligence 

Our challenge is that in a context of polarization the political divide is undermining the ability of politicians to come to an agreement on crucial policies to overcome a deep economic crisis. Consequently, amidst the rise of poverty and lack of credibility of our ruling class, people are increasingly skeptical, the support of democracy and political parties is declining, and many voters are now likely to support populist anti-system leaders. 

The situation: The next presidential elections will be held in October 2023. This will be a historic milestone since it will inaugurate 40 years of democracy. This is a glorious event for the life of the country.  At the same time, Argentina is facing a deep economic crisis with a 100% of inflation rate, a poverty rate of almost 40% of the population, and five consecutive months of stagnation. The crisis has been only worsened by the economic consequences of the pandemic, the war,  the rise of oil prices, and severe climate events, such as the worse drought ever. The drought has a negative impact on the export of soybeans and other grains, one of the main sources of income and foreign exchange in the country.  This situation forces the government to face deep distributive struggles and social unrest.  At the same time, a political divide and political polarization, and even political struggles within the federal government, hamper the chances to establish basic and long-lasting agreements aiming at undertaking the actions required to solve this and many other problems.  The discontent led people to distrust  the ruling class, and the support for antisystem populist leaders is growing. Although the support of democracy is still high if compared with other countries, all these ingredients are a boiling room for the erosion of civic values and the legitimacy of the government.  Dialogue and consensus building are urgent. Several studies (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2019.1698681) have shown that people agree in their values and policy priorities, and it is only when partisan positions appear that they confront. The public attention on the 40-year anniversary of democracy is a unique opportunity to call  attention to these basic values that citizens share to create new arenas and instances of convergence and mutual understanding.  The opportunity:  UNDP is in a unique position to lead this dialogue for different reasons. It led the national dialog https://erc.undp.org/evaluation/evaluations/detail/1240 in the deep 2001 economic crisis. It is also the guardian of the institutional memory of the State, that in Argentina tends to change completely from one presidential administration to another, many times hampering the chance to learn from previous experiences. UNDP supports the government in achieving the ODS and veil for the persistence of the best policies and practices. It is also a driver of innovation for the State.  The tools: We will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create the presidential speech of all the Argentines. We will analyze the opening speeches of legislative sessions given by the 9 elected presidents who took office since the return of democracy in 1983, using AI algorithms and examine the common values of the Argentine people. Thanks to the reputation of the UNDP, which is beyond discussion and over the political divide, we will promote public action and invite presidential candidates to commit to using this speech as the base of the new presidential opening in December 2023 when the next president  takes office.   The constant changes to which the world is exposed require public institutions to adapt quickly to new demands and ways of managing provided by new technologies.  The Lower House of the Argentine Congress has previously ventured into an experience of linking its activities with AI applications. The “Smart Parliament” project, the first algorithm created and trained specifically for the legislative field in Argentina, was carried out together with a group of scientists from The National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET by its Spanish Acronym).   The Project developed an app that works with the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm, analyzing and encompassing deputies' speeches archived since 2005. Through the app, the algorithm reviews dissertations, looks for the co-occurrence of words, and extracts 40 topics without human intervention. Today the result of this first experience is available and freely accessible  on the web. (Source:: https://www4.hcdn.gob.ar/icap/archivos/Inteligencia-artificial-y-politica-1668028317.pdf)   In the exercise of political activity, AI has also been used in:  Speech Generation: The Chat GPT model has been used by some politicians and organizations to create campaign speeches and other political materials. Source: https://www.wcvb.com/article/massachusetts-rep-jake-auchincloss-reads-speech-written-by-chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-to-congress/42670994  Speech analysis: AI has also been used to analyze political speeches and determine their effectiveness. Algorithms are also used to  analyze speech content and search and find similarities between the discourses of opposing political parties.and find similarities between the discourses of opposing political parties (Source: https://towardsdatascience.com/using-artificial-neural-networks-to-analyze-presidential-speeches-6fbd446c5bad) 

As said before, UNDP is in a unique position  to lead this dialogue. First due to its reliability and reputation among all the involved stakeholders. UNDP is a neutral mediator beyond the political divide. At  UNDP Argentina, we lead innovation and  started exploring the different uses of AI tools  in the context of elections and democracy. We also  led the public campaigns with higher reach within the office. 

Join the UNDP to write the  opening speech for the new Argentine presidential inauguration. Innovation and history converge to celebrate #40YearsOfDemocracy  We are nation, we have a history, and we shared the most important values 

What have been the shared concerns and values, the main priorities concerns and goals that can be found across  the different governments?    If we identify these common concerns and values and propose them from our position as the UNDP, a neutral facilitator, then the government and the opposition will have more chances to build consensus and agree on policies to address the main problems of the country. Addressing and resolving citizens' problems can lead to a decrease in their dissatisfaction, which in turn, can improve their level of support for democracy.  This source of data is new for the country’s office but it is available for the general public. We will process all the 9 inauguration speeches in a different way, using an AI algorithm, from the existent sources, to create a completely new piece that reflects on the shared values of the country that allow us to propose a unifying consensus public discourse, along with new instances of dialogue

Artificial intelligence is at the heart of our efforts to identify patterns and commonalities in the opening speeches of different presidents across political parties. This exercise not only serves as a proof of concept but also provides a prototype for testing the potential of AI to support democratic governance. We will leverage collective intelligence to identify past and future plans for AI and work towards regulating this field to balance its possibilities and risks.  By harnessing the power of AI, we can more effectively analyze and understand the nuances of political discourse, leading to more informed decision-making. However, we must also recognize and address the potential risks that come with this technology, such as bias or lack of transparency. Through collaboration and regulation, we can ensure that AI serves the public good and contributes to a more transparent and inclusive democracy. 

To the best of our knowledge, this work is unprecedented in our country. 

This project is meant as a sprint of a short project with high visibility and impact. It will be launched with a massive comms campaign during the election period. It is a quick win for the UNDP to position itself, again, as a facilitator of  unity and consensus building among the ruling class, political and social leaders, and candidates from different political parties of the country. The result of this dialogue will have a spillover effect in the support of democracy and  the achievement of higher levels of social cohesion. Although Argentina does not face political violence or inner conflicts, social unrest is  a problem today.