Bridging the Divide: Exploring the Interplay of Technology, AI, and Ethics in Contemporary Policy Making

Political methodology guides research in the field of political sciences for decades. In reality, it is a means to answer research questions and it should adapt its processes based on the context, the available data, and the particular situation it covers. So how can political methodology successfully incorporate and employ technology, without compromising privacy and ethics? In today’s data-driven and highly digitalised world, the intersection of technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and ethics in political methodology has become a focal point of scholarly inquiry. The study presents the challenges and gaps associated with Big Data, shedding light on the complexities faced by political methodologies in effectively incorporating these technological advancements. This paper has been created in the context of the AI4Gov project, a novel approach designed to tackle the multifaceted challenges posed by Big Data in the realm of policy making. The project is challenged to address critical issues such as privacy, consent, and ethical considerations inherent in leveraging AI within the context of vast data sets. It has created processes that cover multiple areas related to the use of Big Data and the ethical considerations, including from the technical side, a data management framework making sure that the data are being acquired, analyzed, stored and published in the correct way, while it takes under consideration the aspect of ethics and gender, as well as it is in the process of creating an Holistic Regulatory Framework, a comprehensive structure and a set of guidelines intended to govern the use of AI and Big Data in the context of democracy and EU values. Through a comprehensive analysis of the proposed solutions and methodologies embedded within the AI4Gov framework, this paper seeks to unravel how these principles are communicated. Moreover, it investigates the ethical intricacies of AI implementation in policy formulation.