From the printing press to the radio, from television to social media, communication technologies affect politics and broader society by shaping two things: who speaks and what they say.
asserted
they → print → what
In the first case, different technologies vary in the extent to which they favor elite gatekeepers.
asserted
they → vary → gatekeepers
Most famously, the printing press destroyed the informational monopoly enjoyed by European monarchs and the Catholic Church, enabling the Reformation.
asserted
press → print → Reformation
Much later, radio and television partly restored centralized control.
asserted
radio → restore → control
Because they were initially expensive to produce and tightly regulated, they tended to concentrate ideological power in the hands of wealthy, well-connected elites.
asserted
they → produce → elites
Of course, who speaks influences what gets said, but the medium also shapes the message in other ways.
asserted
medium → speak → ways
Print permits careful, detailed argumentation.
asserted
Print → permit → argumentation
Television favors confident sound bites.
asserted
Television → favor → bites
Social media often rewards division, conflict, and negativity.
asserted
media → reward → division
Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Claude are the latest communication technology to reshape public opinion, and their effects could be just as profound.
uncertain
effects → reshape → opinion
Social media decentralized the information environment and weakened the influence of expert opinion.
asserted
media → decentralize → opinion
LLMs are likely to have the opposite effects.
asserted
LLMs → have → effects
Messengers and Messages in the Social Media Age
Social media has been a radically democratizing technology.
asserted
media → democratize → Age
It allows anyone with opinions and an internet connection to bypass traditional gatekeepers, a development that has dramatically expanded the range of voices and viewpoints that can be expressed.
asserted
that → allow → voices
It has also reshaped how media influence works.
asserted
influence → reshape → ?
Because the algorithms that recommend content are optimized to capture audience engagement, they often amplify sensationalist, alarming, and divisive messages.
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they → recommend → messages
Meanwhile, rapid audience feedback through likes, reposts, and comments has made political punditry much more performative and vulnerable to audience capture.
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punditry → make → capture
Unsurprisingly, the decline of elite gatekeepers has increased the influence of popular ideas marginalized by elites, another term for which is “populism.”
asserted
term → increase → which
Social media benefits populism not by brainwashing the masses with viral fake news, but by exposing voters to widespread non-elite perspectives and making it easier to mobilize around them.
asserted
it → benefit → them
In Western liberal democracies, that means perspectives that conflict with the liberal establishment’s technocratic progressivism, including xenophobia, conspiracy theories, and quack science.
asserted
that → mean → xenophobia
At the same time, the performative, engagement-maximizing character of social media has made much of political discourse more stupid and sensationalist.
asserted
much → maximize → discourse
It has also given the world Candace Owens and Andrew Tate.
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It → give → Owens
The Revenge of Expert Knowledge
Consider a topic: climate change, vaccines, immigration, crime, tariffs, wealth inequality, the Epstein Files, whatever happens to be in the news.
asserted
whatever → consider → news
Now compare the response with the information you can find about the topic by scrolling on a major social media platform.
asserted
you → compare → platform
I suspect it will quickly become clear that the LLM’s responses are generally much more evidence-based and in line with expert consensus than what you get from most social media posts.
asserted
you → suspect → posts
And when there is no expert consensus, you will typically get a good survey of the range of informed opinion on the topic.
asserted
you → be → topic
In many ways, yes, but it aligns with several bodies of evidence suggesting that LLMs are becoming increasingly effective at producing broadly accurate information on politically relevant topics, especially when augmented with search tools.
asserted
LLMs → align → tools
In recent experiments involving thousands of participants, for example, using chatbots to research political claims increased belief in true information whilst reducing belief in misinformation as effectively as internet search.
uncertain
using → involve → search
The short answer is that the major AI companies are competing to build the most intelligent, impressive, and useful systems possible for a vast and diverse user base, including businesses that depend on reliable and factual information.
asserted
that → compete → information
This goal—reaping huge profits by putting “expert-level intelligence in everyone’s hands”—cuts against producing systems that deliver highly partisan, ideological, or misinformative content.
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that → reap → content
So do the reputational and legal risks that arise if those systems produce dangerous or demonstrably false information.
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systems → do → information
These are all important issues, but a discourse restricted to such issues is missing the forest for the trees.
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discourse → restrict → trees
When we consider the large-scale impact of this technology on public opinion, its most consequential feature is simple: it greatly improves people’s access to accurate, evidence-based information.
asserted
it → consider → information
From Democratization to Technocratization
Whereas social media has been a democratizing technology, LLMs are a technocratizing force.
asserted
LLMs → democratize → Technocratization
They shift influence back towards expert opinion.
asserted
They → shift → opinion
Over a century ago, Walter Lippmann argued that, because the modern world is too vast and complex for anybody to understand through first-hand experience, we’re forced to rely on intermediaries to become informed.
asserted
we → argue → intermediaries
For Lippmann, the only intermediaries who can reliably perform this function are experts in the broadest sense: trained professionals who adhere to rigorous epistemic norms and methods.
asserted
who → perform → norms
He therefore advocated for institutionalized “intelligence bureaus” that would assemble and explain the actual facts for both politicians and the public.
asserted
that → advocate → politicians
In many ways, the development of Western democracies after the Second World War followed Lippmann’s vision.
asserted
development → follow → vision
Of course, this “expert knowledge” was mixed with elite bias, blind spots, and the occasional catastrophic fuck-up, from the Vietnam War to the 2008 financial crisis.
asserted
knowledge → mix → crisis
…and 78 more, not listed.
The Aporia
