AI’s Biggest Advantage is Scale: Let’s Use that Comparative Advantage in Progressive Campaigns

“While much of the conversation regarding AI and campaigns centers on the biggest campaigns like those at the Presidential and Senate levels, AI will have the biggest impact in politics where resources are the most constrained: local elections”

In the year 1956, John McCarthy coined the term ‘artificial intelligence’, and defined it, saying, “every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.”

In the decades since, AI has made tremendous progress and has been increasingly integrated into society. Siri’s natural language response system, Netflix’s algorithms to optimize movie and show recommendations, and facial recognition biometrics at the airport or on Facebook have become normalized.

The publication Towards Data Science outlines a few major benefits of artificial intelligence:

• Available 24/7

• Helps in Repetitive Jobs

• Reduces Human Error

Together, these underscore the effectiveness of artificial intelligence in executing relatively routine tasks at scale, using what is known as ‘narrow artificial intelligence’.

Anyone who has worked or volunteered on a campaign knows that many campaign tasks need to be executed at scale. Cutting lists of voters to contact, cutting turf to talk to those voters door-to-door, building donor prospect lists, researching donors, generating social media content, speaking with voters, confirming volunteers for shifts, and more.

For resource-constrained progressive organizations that are doing their damnedest to support many campaigns, the demand on time to support campaigns becomes exponentially challenging. The result is that many under-resourced campaigns who cannot afford staff or consultants to help them execute these tasks do not execute them at all. The upshot is our movement is not as strong, robust, and inclusive as it could be.

While much of the conversation regarding AI and campaigns centers on the biggest campaigns like those at the Presidential and Senate levels, AI will have the biggest impact in politics where resources are the most constrained: local campaigns.

At Campaign Brain, we’re working on democratizing artificial intelligence for progressive political campaigns.

To learn more about how artificial intelligence can help your campaign or be leveraged for good in politics, visit us at campaignbrain.ai.