Introduction: Artificial Intelligence, Politics, and Political Science

Introductory chapter of the APSA Presidential Task Force report on "Artificial Intelligence (AI), Politics, and Political Science". It begins by addressing the motivation for the task force: AI’s potential to reshape politics and political science, just as it is transforming other social phenomena and their associated academic fields. Next, it introduces the different sections of the report, including how AI will affect democracy, public administration, national security, international relations, the labor market, public opinion, and the information ecosystem. It also investigates how AI will affect political science research and teaching. It then notes several themes cut across multiple chapters: the unprecedented power of a small number of AI corporations; the opacity and non-replicability of model outputs; bias in AI systems; and the absence of agreed-upon benchmarks for evaluation. An epilogue confronts the rapid emergence of agentic AI tools and poses questions the discipline must address as a result.