AI Literacy Workshop - AI and Democracy

Resource is an outline of a workshop the Texas Tech Librarians gave in October 2024. Includes workshop description and sample Padlet questions for an interactive, hybrid (in-person and online) workshop.

We’ve all seen deep fakes, misinformation, disinformation and “fake news” go viral on social media. With the current election season, it’s more important than ever that engaged citizens are able to evaluate and understand the things that go viral. Please see the second in our series for more about evaluation. 

This workshop will discuss the various ways in which AI is being weaponized in disinformation and misinformation campaigns to sway voters. However, we will also discuss ways that AI is being used in other democratic processes. This will include case uses from a variety of public sectors, looking with a critical eye towards using “big data” to make choices for the populace under the auspices of “neutrality.”

This will be a discussion-based workshop. We will have some slides and/or demo a few tools or guides, but we also want to hear from you, the participants, about these topics. Come with your lunch, your questions, and your experiences. 

Learning Objectives

• Understand how AI effects democracies around the world
• Critically evaluate any AI content related to the current election season
• Work to understand the ”bad actors” on social media platforms that produce misinformation, disinformation, “fake news,” cheap fakes and deep fakes