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Happy New Year! The emergence of the omicron variant virus in South Africa in November last year has caused Europe to introduce a new round of lockdown across the continent. As of December, Europe’s biggest countries like Germany, Netherlands, and United Kingdom introduced more restrictions to fight the resurgence of Covid-19 infections. That’s not all, the government also issued a new set of regulations against unvaccinated Europeans.
However, the Europeans are fed up and want to return back to their normal lives. Thousands of Europeans also took to the streets to protest government vaccine mandates and lockdowns. Violent protests broke out across Europe over vaccine mandates, lockdowns. Angry protestors gathered in Austria, Croatia, Italy, Northern Ireland, the French territory of Guadeloupe, and the Netherlands to protest their government decisions.
This leads to the question: How much trust and confidence do Europeans have in the EU government. According to a study conducted by researchers at IE University’s Center, most Europeans would like to see some of their members of parliament replaced by artificial intelligence (AI).
In a study conducted last year by researchers at IE University’s Center for the Governance of Change, they found that despite AI’s clear and obvious limitations, 51% of Europeans said they were in favor of replacing their lawmakers with AI.
As part of the study, the researchers asked 2,769 people from 11 countries worldwide how they would feel about reducing the number of national parliamentarians in their country and giving those seats to an AI that would have access to their data.
The results were staggering: 66% of people in Spain surveyed supported it, 59% of the respondents in Italy were in favor, and 56% of people in Estonia. Outside Europe, some 75% of people surveyed in China also supported the idea of replacing parliamentarians with AI.
However, not all countries like the idea of handing over control to machines, which can be hacked or act in ways that humans don’t want them to. For example, 60% of American respondents opposed it. In the U.K., 69% of people surveyed were against the idea, while 56% were against it in the Netherlands and 54% in Germany.
Oscar Jonsson, academic director at IE University’s Center for the Governance of Change and one of the report’s main researchers, told CNBC that there’s been a “decades-long decline of belief in democracy as a form of governance.”
Oscar Jonsson told CNBC that the reasons are likely linked to increased political polarization, filter bubbles, and information splintering. Jonsson added:
“Everyone’s perception is that that politics is getting worse and obviously politicians are being blamed so I think it (the report) captures the general zeitgeist,” Jonsson said. He added that the results aren’t that surprising “given how many people know their MP, how many people have a relationship with their MP (and) how many people know what their MP is doing.”
Overall, the study further shows that opinions also vary dramatically by generation, with younger people found to be significantly more open to the idea. Over 60% of Europeans aged 25-34 and 56% of those aged 34-44 were in support of the idea, whereas a majority of respondents above 55-years-old don’t see it as a good idea, according to CNBC.
AI is probably not going to solve all the political problems we’re facing. Maybe we just need to have an age limit in politics and replace the dinosaur politicians with young bright minds. Let us know what you think.
