IB Digital Society 4.6 Political Key Definitions

The laws, rules, standards, and oversight that guide how AI is developed and used. Because it varies widely between countries and is often slower than the technology, governance of AI is uneven and incomplete.

The use of software, often AI, to make or heavily shape decisions about people, such as allocating benefits or flagging fraud, with little or no human involvement. It is fast and consistent but can encode bias and remove the chance to explain or appeal a decision.

A digital system that can sense its environment and act to reach a goal with little or no human control. It need not have a physical body, so it is a broader category than a robot.

The use of digital attacks on an opponent's computer systems and networks to disrupt, damage, or spy, often targeting critical infrastructure. A defining feature is the attribution problem: it is frequently hard to prove who launched an attack, which weakens deterrence and accountability.

A form of synthetic media in which AI is used to convincingly fabricate a person's face or voice, making them appear to say or do things they never did.

Using digital tools, especially social media and messaging, to raise awareness, organise, and mobilise people for a political or social cause. It lowers the cost of collective action but is criticised for shallow, low-effort participation and exposure to surveillance.

The use of digital tools in democratic processes, such as online organising, e-petitions, e-participation, and internet voting. It can widen participation and openness, but also creates new routes for manipulation, exclusion, and loss of trust.

Shared, foundational digital systems that a society builds public services on, such as a national digital ID, payment rails, and data-exchange platforms. It can join services up and widen access, but concentrates sensitive data and risk in one place.

The laws, rules, and policies societies use to govern digital technology, covering data protection, platforms, cybercrime, AI, and encryption. It faces a pacing problem, because technology advances faster than the law, and a borderless technology meets laws that stop at borders.

The delivery of government services and interactions with citizens through digital systems, such as online tax filing, digital ID, and internet voting. It can make services faster and more accessible, but raises issues of security, verifiability, and unequal access.

Scrambling data using a key so that only someone with the correct key can read it, protecting the data both while it is stored and while it is being sent.

The way rules and norms for cross-border issues are set through international bodies, agreements, and powerful blocs, rather than a single world authority. For digital technology it is hard, because systems cross borders instantly while laws stop at them and states can opt out.

Weapons systems that use AI to select and attack targets on their own, with little or no human involvement in the decision to kill. The central debate is whether meaningful human control must be preserved, since a machine cannot be held responsible for a wrongful killing.

Using data profiles of people's behaviour and traits to deliver tailored political or commercial messages to narrow groups. In politics it lets a campaign show different, often hidden, messages to different audiences, raising concerns about manipulation and transparency.

False or misleading information that spreads online, whether shared by mistake or deliberately, made harder to catch when convincing media can be produced and shared by anyone.

The methods and activities through which citizens and governments interact to make decisions about public policy and governance.

Biased or one-sided information designed to influence public opinion.

The systematic monitoring of people's behaviour, often through digital data, by a state or company, whether or not those being watched are aware of it.