The course “Theories of Politics and Communication in the Information Age (GPC-312)”, organized by the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, explores challenges to democracy posed by the rapid digitalization of society. Artificial intelligence (AI) applications like ChatGPT and Tinder, algorithms, social media, and modern digital technology were among the issues examined in the course in the fall of 2023. The course is obligatory for GPC students of all three study tracks and is taught by the GPC program director, Adjunct Professor S.M. Amadae.
Since 2020, as their final assignment of the course, students have written collective research papers on their selected topic related to the theme explored in the course. Originally, a selected number of the research projects were published as a hard copy collection of essays. However, in the past few years, they have been published digitally on the GPC website. The research papers by students who participated in the course in the fall of 2023 are also now available on the GPC website.
The two papers published this year explore digitalization and artificial intelligence, with a focus on ChatGPT and dating applications and the biases and inequalities present in them. The paper entitled "Exploring Gender Bias in ChatGPT: An Examination of Migration Reporting in British Newspapers" seeks to discover to what extent there is gender bias towards the male gender in ChatGPT-3.5, hypothesizing that ChatGPT has potential for a male-focused gender bias. While previous research has shown that there is bias in search engines, the number of studies on gender bias in AI is low. The authors found that ChatGPT ranks gender bias below the human-established baseline mean rank in all scenarios and has a limited capability to conduct complex tasks.
Secondly, the authors of the paper "Swiping Right on Inequality – Tinder as a Means of Biopower" utilize Michel Foucault’s theory of biopower to examine how social inequality is maintained and reproduced by dating applications, specifically Tinder. The paper argues that biopower is inherently intertwined with the algorithmic logic based on big data collection and a habit-forming application design. The authors conclude that Tinder’s algorithm gamifies partner seeking while perpetuating gender inequality and reinforcing heteronormative norms.