LLMs' Potential Influences on Our Democracy: Challenges and Opportunities

Yujin Potter, David Rand, Yejin Choi, Dawn Song

Blogpost Url: https://d2jud02ci9yv69.cloudfront.net/2025-04-28-llm-democracy-105/blog/llm-democracy/

Abstract: With growing research and attention on LLMs' potential influence on political discourse and democratic processes, this blog post discusses the path forward and proposes future research questions in four broad areas: (1) evaluation of LLM political leanings, (2) understanding LLMs' influence on our democracy, (3) better policy frameworks for AI development, and (4) technical solutions to adjust or mitigate political leanings. As LLMs become increasingly integrated into society, continued investigation of how they will reshape democracy is essential to maximize their benefits while minimizing risks to democratic processes.

Conflict Of Interest: We acknowledge potential conflicts of interest regarding several cited papers. Specifically, some authors of this blog post are also authors of the papers referenced as [3, 9, 12, 15, 16, 26, 27, 28, 29]. While these papers constitute part of our references, we have strived to maintain objectivity in their description and have included discussions of their limitations. It's important to note that our blog post's primary focus is not on these specific papers, but rather on examining future directions for how LLMs will reshape democracy. These papers were included because they represent some of the earliest studies examining LLMs' influence on democracy.

Submission Number: 69