Political scientists have had remarkably little to say about artificial intelligence (AI), perhaps because they are dissuaded by its technical complexity and by current debates about whether AI might emulate, outstrip, or replace individual human intelligence. They ought to consider AI in terms of its relationship with governance. Existing large-scale systems of governance such as markets, bureaucracy, and democracy make complex human relations tractable, albeit with some loss of information. AI’s major political consequences can be considered under two headings. First, we may treat AI as a technology of governance, asking how AI’s capacities to classify information at scale affect markets, bureaucracy, and democracy. Second, we might treat AI as an emerging form of governance in its own right, with its own particular mechanisms of representation and coordination. These two perspectives reveal new questions for political scientists, encouraging them to reconsider the boundaries of their discipline.
