Artificial Intelligence for EU Decision-Making: Effects on Citizens Perceptions of Input, Throughput and Output Legitimacy

The uploaded dataset was used for the statistical analysis of the pre-print "Artificial Intelligence for EU Decision-Making: Effects on Citizens’ Perceptions of Input, Throughput and Output Legitimacy" (Permanent identifier: arXiv:2003.11320) A lack of political legitimacy undermines the ability of the European Union (EU) to resolve major crises and threatens the stability of the system as a whole. By integrating digital data into political processes, the EU seeks to base decision-making increasingly on sound empirical evidence. In particular, artificial intelligence (AI) systems have the potential to increase political legitimacy by identifying pressing societal issues, forecasting potential policy outcomes, informing the policy process, and evaluating policy effectiveness. This paper investigates how citizens’ perceptions of EU input, throughput, and output legitimacy are influenced by three distinct decision-making arrangements: (1) independent human decision-making (HDM); (2) independent algorithmic decision-making (ADM) by AI-based systems; and (3) hybrid decision-making by EU politicians and AI-based systems together. The results of a pre-registered online experiment (n = 572) suggest that existing EU decision-making arrangements are still perceived as the most democratic (input legitimacy). However, regarding the decision-making process itself (throughput legitimacy) and its policy outcomes (output legitimacy), no difference was observed between the status quo and hybrid decision-making involving both ADM and democratically elected EU institutions. Where ADM systems are the sole decision-maker, respondents tend to perceive these as illegitimate. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for (a) EU legitimacy and (b) data-driven policy-making.本上传数据集用于预印本论文《人工智能助力欧盟决策：对公民关于输入、过程与输出合法性感知的影响》（永久标识符：arXiv:2003.11320）的统计分析。政治合法性的缺失会削弱欧盟（EU）解决重大危机的能力，并威胁整个欧盟体系的稳定。欧盟正通过将数字数据融入政治治理进程，以期让决策愈发依托扎实的实证依据。其中，人工智能（AI）系统具备显著提升政治合法性的潜力：可识别紧迫的社会议题、预判潜在政策效果、为政策制定流程提供支撑，并评估政策实施成效。本文探讨了三种不同的决策架构对公民关于欧盟输入合法性、过程合法性与输出合法性感知的影响：（1）独立人工决策（Human Decision-Making, HDM）；（2）基于AI系统的独立算法决策（Algorithmic Decision-Making, ADM）；（3）欧盟政客与AI系统协同开展的混合决策。一项预先注册的线上实验（样本量n=572）结果显示，现有欧盟决策架构仍被视为最具民主性的（输入合法性维度）。然而在决策流程本身（过程合法性）与政策成果（输出合法性）维度，现状架构与同时包含算法决策（ADM）及民选欧盟机构的混合决策架构之间未观测到显著差异。当算法决策（ADM）系统为唯一决策者时，受访者普遍认为其不具备合法性。本文还讨论了上述研究发现对（a）欧盟合法性建设，以及（b）数据驱动型政策制定的实践启示。