U.S. Elections: What Does AI Reveal About The Two Candidates
The United State’s febrile politics have dominated the global political scene for the past four years. Notably, the U.S. elections have always been one of the most closely observed political events across the world. The current elections have created a climate of unprecedented national divide and further expanded the chasm between the Republican and the Democratic party. With a record voter turnout in the horizon and two truly different but equally strong candidates, voters are consuming each and every possible source of information in order to make an educated decision and serve their country in the best possible way.
When comparing the two candidates the majority of media outlets focus on either their perspective policies or their psyche. Nevertheless, as it is impossible for a human being to remain entirely objective and critically analyze without any biases or preconceived notions each and every aspect of one’s personality traits, especially when referring to two political figures, these estimates and commentaries are highly subjective and by consequence invalid.
Nevertheless, the problem remained: voters did not have access to factually correct, unbiased data related to the personality of the two political candidates. For that reason Filippos Dounis used IBM Watson Personality Insights in an effort to paint the psychological profile of President Trump and Former VP Joe Biden using a data-driven approach through applied linguistic analytics and personality theory (always using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning).
In order to draw conclusions about the personality of the two candidates it was imperative to analyze an example of emblematic, spontaneous, unfiltered comments and reactions corresponding to different situations. Initially, it was deemed that the President’s and the Former VP’s Tweets were the prime examples of such reactions. However, it is no secret that the social media accounts of political figures are highly scrutinised and curated by media teams. Consequently, an alternative route had to be followed and the data was based on a transcript of the Final, 2020 Presidential Debate. The reasoning behind this selection has its roots in the many personal attacks made by both candidates during the debate that enabled them to deviate from the script and show a truer portrait of themselves.
Before moving any further it is important to note that :
“The scores you see are all percentiles. They are comparing Former Vice President Biden to a broader population. For example, a 90% on Extraversion does not mean that the person is 90% extroverted. It means that for that single trait, the person is more extroverted than 90% of the people in the population. What is referred to above as “population” obviously does not correspond to the entire U.S. population, but to a sample set of English speaking twitter users that are used to reflect the entire population.”
The analytical results were divided into three main groups: Personality, Consumer Needs, and Values, with Personality divided into 5 subsequent large categories: Emotional Range, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Openness.
Upon examining the data provided, it seems that the percentages attributed to Openness and Conscientiousness do not present any great differences between the two candidates. With a difference of only 1 % Donald Trump leads with 90% in Openness and Joe Biden, with a difference of 2%, leads with 92% in Conscientiousness. A slight difference (9%) can also be detected in the Extraversion percentages where Biden leads with 24% and Trump follows with 15%. However, this is not the case in Agreeableness where Donald Trump shines through with a commanding 56% while Biden gathers only 22%. These 34 percentiles separating the two candidates clearly show that D. J. Trump is more agreeable than 34% of the “population”. Lastly, when Emotional Range is examined the difference between the two political candidates is once again not that vast as only 4 percentiles separate Joe Biden (6%) from Donald Trump (4%).
Apart from these categories the contrast is also sizable in Self — Efficacy with a difference of 36% separating the two candidates and in Activity Level and Modesty with a difference of 33% and 30% respectively. Joe Βiden has a commanding lead both in Self — Efficacy (82%) and in Activity Level (78%) while Donald Trump leads in Modesty (78%).
When compared the data referring to Values paint a clear picture. Former VP Joe Biden leads in almost every sub-category with the most prominent difference ( 9 percentiles) concerning Openness to Change (15% in contrast to President Trump’s 6% ). With reference to Self — Transcendence and Hedonism the two candidates tied with 9% and 3% respectively.
Finally, a mindful analysis of the data associated with Consumer Needs illustrates the following: Both candidates display high percentages of Structure and Stability with Biden leading in both categories ( Structure: President Trump 74%, Joe Biden 83%, Stability :President Trump 36%, Joe Biden 43%). In Closeness President Donald Trump has the lead with 10% versus Joe Biden’s 4% whereas referring to Harmony the two candidates share the same percentage of 6 percentiles.
Many elements of the election still remain uncertain, from the impact of the impeachment trial to the Covid-19 pandemic that still plagues the States and the world. However, there is little doubt that millions of american voters are feeling the very fabric of their country’s democracy to be at stake. Nevertheless, as ballots are being sealed and the results of the election are starting to show, the question that arises is: are the american people going to vote for the candidate that brings them comfort and assurance in their shared similarities or for the candidate that brings them a much needed sense of security and stability in his carefully tailored image and years of experience?
