This week, the Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence will meet to examine the societal, democratic, and regulatory implications of AI technologies in Ireland. The committee brings together policymakers, researchers, and civil society organisations to assess how artificial intelligence is being developed, deployed, and governed. As AI tools become increasingly embedded in everyday decision-making and communication, the committee’s work plays a key role in shaping Ireland’s approach to oversight, accountability, and innovation in this rapidly evolving field.
At Tuesday’s session, EDMO Ireland’s coordinator Dr. Eileen Culloty will speak on the matter of AI and democracy. EDMO Ireland has previously made a statement on AI use, emphasising that AI literacy is essential, while also raising concerns about the implications of certain forms of AI for truth and democracy. Drawing on experience with disinformation and platform co-regulation, the statement highlights the need to distinguish between legitimate AI research and tools, and the growing influence of AI systems driven by major technology companies that are reshaping information environments.
The statement further notes that generative AI systems do not prioritise factual accuracy, instead producing outputs that are statistically plausible, a limitation that is widely acknowledged yet frequently downplayed. As these systems are increasingly promoted as tools for generating, summarising, and evaluating information, there is growing evidence that reliance on them can undermine human reasoning. Beyond the proliferation of low-quality or deceptive content, the deeper concern identified is that opaque and flawed AI systems risk weakening the foundations of democratic citizenship and public debate. Reflecting on past regulatory approaches to emerging technologies, EDMO Ireland warns that repeating earlier mistakes of weak oversight could have long-term consequences as AI becomes further embedded in social and political life.
Opening Statement on behalf of EDMO Ireland at Dublin City University:
Cathaoirleach,
I am speaking on behalf of EDMO Ireland, which is an EU-funded project to address disinformation through research, fact-checking, media literacy, and policy analysis. We work closely with Media Literacy Ireland and share its view that AI literacy is essential. Based on our work on disinformation and platform co-regulation, EDMO Ireland has specific concerns about AI’s implications for truth and democracy. Here, it is important to distinguish between AI research, AI tools, and AI as a new frontier for major tech companies. Our concerns lie with how this last category is re-shaping information environments, not with the legitimate use of AI in research and applications. Regarding truth, generative AI is fundamentally unreliable. It does not aim at factual accuracy. Instead, it offers outputs that are statistically plausible based on its training data. This limitation is well known. Nevertheless, tech companies overhype AI systems and embed them into everyday life. We are offered convenient, but unreliable, tools to generate, summarise, and evaluate content. And evidence suggests a dependency on these unreliable tools undermines our capacity to reason1. In summary, the problem is not only that generative AI is flooding the world with scams and low-quality slop, which it is. Nor is it simply that technology platforms’ ability to detect and label AI-generated material is wholly inadequate, which it also is. The deeper issue is that flawed and opaque AI systems are undermining human reasoning, eroding a cornerstone of democratic citizenship and public debate. In the 1990s, the policy approach to emerging technology companies was defined by weak regulation to support innovation. We are still dealing with the consequences. Today, those companies are global giants, many hyping a new technological revolution. Faced with regulatory choices, it is striking that we appear to be making the same mistake again.