IVADO and CEIMIA announce a strategic partnership focused on the challenges of using AI for political and electoral purposes

Montréal, July 3, 2024 – IVADO, an artificial intelligence consortium based at the Université de Montréal and federating 4 university partners (Polytechnique Montréal, HEC Montréal, Université Laval and McGill University) and the Montréal International Center of Expertise on Artificial Intelligence (CEIMIA) announce the establishment of a strategic partnership to address the major challenges posed by the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for political and electoral purposes in Quebec, Canada, and internationally.

The year 2024 is a crucial one for democracies around the world. Elections have been or will be held in 76 countries representing over 4 billion people, or 51% of the global population. In addition, Canadian federal elections are scheduled for 2025, and Quebec provincial elections for 2026.

The risks associated with using AI to fuel misinformation and influence voting choice are becoming increasingly concerning. They are such that, when launching the United Nations Global Principles for Information Integrity on June 24, 2024, Secretary-General António Guterres asserted that “Threats to information integrity are not new, but they are proliferating and expanding with unprecedented speed on digital platforms, supercharged by AI technologies.” Indeed, generative AI tools are posing unprecedented challenges by enabling actors to create deepfakes, micro-target the electorate and conduct cyberattacks more efficiently, quickly and cost-effectively. These uses could have many negative consequences: loss of public trust in democratic institutions, manipulation of opinions, extreme polarization of debates and more.

IVADO and CEIMIA are joining forces to raise awareness, equip and collaborate with public organizations and civil society actors on these crucial issues. Additionally, they aim to better understand and convey how AI can, in some cases, be used as a lever to strengthen our democratic processes.

The partnership will focus on a number of key areas, enabling the two organizations to capitalize on their complementary experience:

• Implementing research and monitoring activities;
• Supporting the deliberations of public bodies such as Élections Québec, as well as other civil society actors;
• Collaborating at the Quebec, Canadian, and international levels with renowned specialists to develop new public policies.

Both organizations will also work on knowledge transfer regarding AI and democracies, implementing awareness programs, developing risk management frameworks, and creating tools to protect electoral and democratic processes from the misuse of AI.

For further information, please contact: Réjean Roy, Director of Training and Knowledge Mobilization at IVADO, rejean.roy@ivado.ca or Mathieu Marcotte, Director, Partnerships and Ecosystems at CEIMIA, mathieu.marcotte@ceimia.org.

About IVADO

IVADO is an interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral  research, training and knowledge mobilization consortium whose mission is to develop and promote a robust, reasoning and responsible AI. Led by Université de Montréal with four university partners (Polytechnique Montréal, HEC Montréal, Université Laval and McGill University), IVADO brings together research centres, government bodies and industry members to co-build ambitious cross-sectoral initiatives with the goal of fostering a paradigm shift for AI and its adoption.

About CEIMIA

The Montréal International Center of Expertise in Artificial Intelligence (CEIMIA) is an organization at the forefront of international partnerships dedicated to research and the development of AI solutions to address major societal challenges. CEIMIA positions itself as a key player in the responsible development of artificial intelligence, grounded in principles of ethics, human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation, and economic growth. CEIMIA develops and implements high-impact applied projects in responsible AI. CEIMIA is one of the Support Centers for Experts of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), collaborating with 29 governments on the development and adoption of responsible artificial intelligence.