Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan warns AI-powered gerrymandering could undermine US democracy

The possibility of ending partisan gerrymandering-- the practice of redrawing voting districts in favor one party over another -- was all but obliterated on Thursday, when the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that challenges to the controversial practice cannot be heard in federal court. In an impassioned dissent, Justice Elena Kagan warned that in the era of artificial intelligence, such a move could put American democracy at risk. "Gerrymanders will only get worse (or depending on your perspective, better) as time goes on -- as data becomes ever more fine-grained and data analysis techniques continue to improve," she wrote. "What was possible with paper and pen -- or even with Windows 95 -- doesn't hold a candle (or an LED bulb?) to what will become possible with developments like machine learning. And someplace along this road, 'we the people' become sovereign no longer."