The Role of Population Surveys in Updating the Social Contract: Can Artificial Intelligence Replace Public Opinion?
Currently, almost all surveys are conducted using digital technologies. Different time zones, a large number of regions, cultural norms, and linguistic diversity complicate the collection of information from citizens. To make management decisions, it is important to conduct surveys simultaneously and in a short time. At the same time, there are areas where collecting information from the population is especially difficult, especially settlements harsh climatic conditions or located far from transport routes.
The spread of online surveys allows us to solve such problems. The main advantages of online surveys are speed, low cost, and independent completion of the questionnaire by the respondent. But there are also problems. The most important problem is the lack of precise evidence that the questionnaire was filled out by a person with the necessary characteristics. Imitation of answers can be done both by people and by artificial intelligence. The capabilities of artificial intelligence are growing every day.
Today, it is already possible to obtain fairly plausible distributions of responses to many topics that interest sociologists. Questions related to the rights and obligations of citizens, requests from the population addressed to the state, and assessments of the activities of government bodies are too sensitive to be entrusted to the generation of responses by artificial intelligence. How can the process of collecting data on the Internet be controlled? How accurately does artificial intelligence reflect public opinion? How can we resist speculation in the research support of the social contract? These pressing issues require discussion by the professional community in the near future.