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Artificial super-intelligence (ASI) is a software-based system with intellectual powers beyond those of humans across an almost comprehensive range of categories and fields of endeavor.

The reality is that AI has been with here for a long time now, ever since computers were able to make decisions based on inputs and conditions. When we see a threatening Artificial Intelligence system in the movies, its the malevolence of the system, coupled with the power of some machine that scares people.

However, it still behaves in fundamentally human ways.

The kind of AI that prevails today can be described as an Artificial Functional Intelligence (AFI). These systems are programmed to perform a specific role and to do so as well or better than a human. They have also become more successful at this in a short period which no one has ever predicted. For example, beating human opponents in complex games like Go and StarCraft II which knowledgeable people thought wouldnt happen for years, if not decades.

However, Alpha Go might beat every single human Go player handily from now until the heat death of the Universe, but when it is asked for the current weather conditions there the machine lacks the intelligence of even single-celled organisms that respond to changes in temperature.

Moreover, the prospect of limitless expansion of technology granted by the development of Artificial Intelligence is certainly an inviting one. While investment and interest in the field only grow by every passing year, one can only imagine what we might have to come.

Dreams of technological utopias granted by super-intelligent computers are contrasted with those of an AI lead dystopia, and with many top researchers believing the world will see the arrival of AGI within the century, it is down to the actions people take now to influence which future they might see. While some believe that only Luddites worry about the power AI could one-day hold over humanity, the reality is that most tops AI academics carry a similar concern for its more grim potential.

Its high time people must understand that no one is going to get a second attempt at Powerful AI. Unlike other groundbreaking developments for humanity, if it goes wrong there is no opportunity to try again and learn from the mistakes. So what can we do to ensure we get it right the first time?

The trick to securing the ideal Artificial Intelligence utopia is ensuring that their goals do not become misaligned with that of humans; AI would not become evil in the same sense that much fear, the real issue is it making sure it could understand our intentions and goals. AI is remarkably good at doing what humans tell it, but when given free rein, it will often achieve the goal humans set in a way they never expected. Without proper preparation, a well-intended instruction could lead to catastrophic events, perhaps due to an unforeseen side effect, or in a more extreme example, the AI could even see humans as a threat to fully completing the task set.

The potential benefits of super-intelligent AI are so limitless that there is no question in the continued development towards it. However, to prevent AGI from being a threat to humanity, people need to invest in AI safety research. In this race, one must learn how to effectively control a powerful AI before its creations.

The issue of ethics in AI, super-intelligent or otherwise, is being addressed to a certain extent, evidenced by the development of ethical advisory boards and executive positions to manage the matter directly. DeepMind has such a department in place, and international oversight organizations such as the IEEE have also created specific standards intended for managing the coexistence of highly advanced AI systems and the human beings who program them. But as AI draws ever closer to the point where super-intelligence is commonplace and ever more organizations adopt existing AI platforms, ethics must be top of mind for all major stakeholders in companies hoping to get the most out of the technology.

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Smriti is a Content Analyst at Analytics Insight. She writes Tech/Business articles for Analytics Insight. Her creative work can be confirmed @analyticsinsight.net. She adores crushing over books, crafts, creative works and people, movies and music from eternity!!

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Is Dystopian Future Inevitable with Unprecedented Advancements in AI? - Analytics Insight

Next month, CIIs annual summit will explore the digital transformation of knowledge societies. To be held entirely online from July 6-8, the forum is titled CII Global Knowledge Virtual Summit 2020: Knowledge in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

The conference is also supported by the KM Global Network (KMGN), and will feature the awards ceremony for the Most Innovative Knowledge Enterprise (MIKE). AFCONS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, and Tata Chemicals are winners of the MIKE Awards at the India and global levels.

YourStory is the media partner for the summit this year as well (see Part I and Part II of our 2019 summit articles). Topics addressed this year include the rise of AI/ML, knowledge integration, gamification, and storytelling.

In this series of preview articles, YourStory presents insights from the speakers and organisers of the CII 2020 summit, as well as experts from KMGN (see Part I and Part II of our ongoing coverage of the 2020 edition). The knowledge movement has particular urgency in the wake of COVID-19 to speed up effective knowledge-sharing across sectoral and national boundaries.

In a chat with YourStory, Jennifer Mecherippady, Senior Vice-President of CGI, shows a number of AI benefits that have been realised by her company. These include digital transformation of AM/IM (application/infrastructure management) operations through its Intelligent Automation Platform, responding to RFPs based on insights from specifications and past data, and digitisation of industry-specific needs in banking and HR.

A number of case studies of AI have shown broader impacts across industries, explains Sameer Dhanrajani, CEO of AIQRATE. He is also the author of AI and Analytics: Accelerating Business Decisions (see my book review here).

The case studies cover AI impacts in media (innovative content creation via hyper-personalisation and micro-segmenting), insurance (transformation of the business value chain in claims processing, telematics, risk management, actuarial valuations), and manufacturing (predictive asset maintenance to pre-empt wear and tear).

We are being ushered into an AI era, an algorithm-led economy wherein self-intuitive and ML- enabled algorithms sit at the core of every business model and in the organisational DNA, delivering end-to-end transformative impact, he explains.

Machines are great at evaluating huge volumes of data and generating clever visualisations from these. AI is also good at finding trends that humans cant immediately see due to the volume of data and possible interfering counter patterns, explains Arthur Shelley, Founder of Intelligent Answers.

A number of other experts have documented specific impacts of AI and ML in companies like Amazon, GE, Bosch, Nike, Caterpillar, Spotify, Netflix, SAP, Cisco, IBM, Siemens, Verizon, Unilever, P&G, GSK, Novartis, SalesForce.com, DBS Bank, RioTinto, Lowes, AllState, and AlphaGo. See my book reviews of Prediction Machines; What to do when Machines do Everything; Machine, Platform, Crowd; The AI Advantage; and Human + Machine.

Every five years or so, the field of KM undergoes a metamorphosis, absorbing the latest trends into its practices and thereby delivering continuing value, explains Rudolph D'souza, Chair of KMGN and Chief Knowledge Officer of AFCONS Infrastructure. He cites the rise of the internet, social media, and enterprise digital platforms as examples of such waves.

The same is going to happen with AI, automation, and machines. What will change is the pace, the sources of knowledge, and in this new era the application of knowledge, Rudolph says. The role of KM is to absorb the latest applications to serve organisation needs to compete effectively.

This is already happening, mainly in the form of simple decision support where the implications are not catastrophic. But some use cases of higher-end applications have been around, as in the case of using machines to analyse scans in oncology departments and assist specialists, Rudolph observes.

Knowledge creation and management is a critical differentiator for the industry. With AI making great strides in generating knowledge from raw video, image, voice, and social media text, knowledge creation and management has to be redefined, explains Gopichand Katragadda, Chairman, Global Knowledge Summit 2020, and Founder and CEO at Myelin Foundry.

The rise of AI and automation will lead to the increasing embedding of relevant knowledge about decisions, design, and processes right into the code, according to Ravi Shankar Ivaturi, Business Operations Senior Director, Products and Platforms, Unisys. This can lead to positive and negative effects, he cautions.

Structured KM lays the foundation on which AI, machine learning, and automation can thrive, according to Ved Prakash, Chief Knowledge Officer of Trianz. The role of KM is only going to increase in the emerging scenarios where deep understanding of knowledge and data will be a key skill, he adds.

The role of KM is going to be that of a connective tissue across systems, machines, and humans. The game is still about insights, explains Balaji Iyer, Director of Knowledge Management and Enterprise Transformation at Grant Thornton.

Many processes are automated in a HUMBOT framework where humans work closely with bots to get the desired outcomes. There is a crucial knowledge play in areas of machine teaching, human-bot hand-offs, and solving the right problems, he adds

The more AI makes a lot of the processes appear like black boxes for business leaders, the more pronounced the need for a next-gen KM program, Balaji says. He also draws attention to the re-imagination of KM systems using AI as a backbone for an AI-driven world, with KM products like Microsofts Cortex as an example.

AI will continue to be used to replicate human cognitive functions such as memory, learning, evaluation, decision making, and problem solving, says Zeba Khan, Managing Partner, Xenvis Solutions. The role of the human factor in aspects of creativity, intuition and in other soft skills cannot be replaced by technology. AI will not replace human jobs but will redefine them, she emphasises.

AI needs knowledge to properly operate and produce valuable results. KM will help producing the raw material for AI and support the AI process at every stage, explains Vincent Ribire, Managing Director and Co-founder of the Institute for Knowledge and Innovation Southeast Asia (IKI-SEA), hosted by Bangkok University.

Every organisation using AI aims to have knowledge embedded into a system to perform the roles humans do at lightning speed, observes Rajesh Dhillon, President, Knowledge Management Society (KMS), Singapore. Knowledge sharing, collaboration, reuse and learning are the impetus for implementing KM and keeping AI relevant.

AI-assisted collaboration tools can take knowledge management to another level, observes Refiloe Mabaso, Deputy Chairperson of Knowledge Management South Africa (KMSA). AI and KM combined can help teams and organisations operate even more intelligently.

What AI is not (yet) great at is finding the gaps or creatively connecting the insights that may be possible. The future is about what is possible in future and this is informed from what currently is and cant be done, explains Arthur Shelley of Intelligent Answers.

This is where collaboration between AI and human creativity offers more than either alone can achieve, he adds. Based in Melbourne, Arthur is the producer of the Creative Melbourne conference, and author of KNOWledge SUCCESSion, Being a Successful Knowledge Leader, and The Organizational Zoo.

AI and automation can be beneficial, but humane and responsible automation is important for balancing the unemployment and cost, cautions Sudip Mazumder, Head of Engineering and Construction, Digital at L&T NxT, and General Manager, L&T Group. AI may lead to dehumanised processes as peoples behavioural drivers may not be mapped in an AI model, he explains.

There will be realignment of the human-machine equation in the context of AI proliferation in the Industry 4.0 era, explains Sameer Dhanrajani of AIQRATE. However, akin to all three previous revolutions, AI progress will redefine jobs and human roles a few notches up, he adds.

He foresees a change in workforce composition with menial and trivial jobs getting redefined with AI and redesigned with human-machine combinations. However, platform aggregators and the gig economy will open up new work opportunities for the workforce.

A world that was hurtling at a relentless pace towards automation, AI, and ML has been forced to stop in its tracks and take cognizance of the human in the process. And, it took a virus to do that, cautions Rajib Chowdhury, Founder of The Gamification Company.

Working from home is ineffective without emotional trust, a sense of ownership, self-motivation, and measures of accountability, he adds. Let us not forget that we humans are fundamentally social beings. Technology is but a medium that plays a role of enabler to the process, he emphasises.

The human factor is still key in a world of AI, explains Jennifer Mecherippady of CGI. This includes identifying potential problems and measurable metrics, providing the right data sets, attributes, and values, and finally evaluating the business outcomes.

The screaming need for KM in the age of automation, ML, and AI is to formulate and implement frameworks for the Governance of Human and Machine Knowledge, emphasises Arthur Murray, CEO of Applied Knowledge Sciences, in Washington DC.

Knowledge, whether human or automated, does not manage itself. It requires, as we like to say, adult supervision, he explains. In a recent column, he shows how these challenges manifested themselves in Microsofts aborted Twitter chatbot Tay.

KM practitioners should strategically work with executive management to measure and update performance impacts of AI, advises Moria Levy, CEO, ROM Knowledgeware. They should examine how AI can, or cannot, support critical decisions. This involves knowledge validation, sense-making, and risk analysis.

A number of experts have weighed in on broader ethical dimensions of AI with respect to embedded bias, monopolistic practices, global governance, and lack of transparency and accountability. See for example my book reviews of A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence, Life 3.0, The Four, and The Platform Society.

Despite the presence of AI for decades, a number of myths and misconceptions persist, and get in the way of harnessing AI. Jennifer Mecherippady of CGI points to some such myths: AI will replace humans and overtake human intelligence, AI can make sense of any data and learn the way humans learn, and AI will give immediate business results.

Many companies are embracing digital transformation without fully understanding the key role of analytics and AI, cautions Sameer Dhanrajani of AIQRATE. The road to digital transformation is incomplete without AI being at the fulcrum of the business. Enterprises cannot adopt AI if the foundational aspects of analytics capability are not in place in the journey to AI, he emphasises.

Lack of awareness of AI impacts gets in the way of evangelising and democratising AI, he adds. AI calls for disrupting the business value chain of the enterprises and replacing it with high powered ML-enabled algorithms.

The speakers offer a range of tips for professionals and organisations to upskill themselves for a world of AI. You need to identify different groups of people and upskill them. For example, programmers need to be able to identify, implement, refine, and manage new models, Jennifer Mecherippady of CGI explains.

Business users should master how to effectively use intelligent systems for solving new business problems. Business consultants should be able to understand business problems and identify the right use cases to invest in AI, she adds. Use case identification, collaboration, and scaling call for a systematic learning process.

AI therefore should be owned by the teams invested in driving the benefits for customers, she adds. CGIs organisational model alignment emphasises a flattened structure consisting of just five level to business unit leaders.

Learning will not be a one-time effort. It will be a continual one and the market will unleash new exponential technologies, business practices, and disruptive scenarios in rapid time cycles, observes Sameer Dhanrajani of AIQRATE.

The basic needs for survival so far have been roti, kapda, makaan, and data. All professions will be forced to add the fifth element learning into their monthly budgets to ensure that they remain topical on skills and competencies, Sameer jokes.

The speakers offer a range of tips for businesses to harness AI. Continue looking for strong opportunities and business cases for AI. Make it a goal for your teams, advises Jennifer of CGI.

Many enterprises have only a short-term measure for AI adoption and focus only on PoCs or limited engagements. Instead, they need to make AI integral to the strategy of the enterprise and a rallying cry, Sameer of AIQRATE urges.

The COVID-19 crisis will accelerate AI adoption in totality and across industry segments. Customer preferences have drastically changed, and operational processes have been altered because of this Black Swan event, Sameer observes.

However, as the current running algorithms have been fed with historical and episodical instances of the past, the coronavirus crisis will compel enterprises to alter the algorithms with revised assumptions and variables. Otherwise, these pre-configured algorithms may create biases in the existing data sets and provide distorted recommendations to the stakeholders, Sameer cautions.

Want to make your startup journey smooth? YS Education brings a comprehensive Funding Course, where you also get a chance to pitch your business plan to top investors. Click here to know more.

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An eye on AI CII Global Knowledge Summit explores impacts and strategies for the Age of the Algorithm - YourStory

Democracy can refer to a system of government or to a particular state that employs this system. The word entered English around the 1570s, from the Middle French dmocratie, but it originally comes, via Latin, from the ancient Greek demokratia, which literally means rule (kratos) by the people (demos). The Greek demokratia dates all the way back to the 5th century b.c., when it was used to describe the government in some city-states, notably Athens.

There are two kinds of democracy: direct and representative. Direct democracy is when the people are directly involved in governing the state. Representative democracy, which characterizes the U.S. system, occurs when people elect representatives to ensure their interests in government. When we think of democracy today, we usually think of a representative one in which all or most people are able to participate. This concept didnt originate until a very long time after democracys ancient roots.

In 507 b.c., Cleisthenes, the leader of Athens, introduced a series of reforms designed to allow the people to have a voice in ruling the city. It included three different political bodies: the governors, the council of representatives, and the courts. Only male citizens over the age of eighteen could vote, excluding those from outside the city, slaves, and all women. This system of government lasted until around the 400 b.c., when it began to waver, with conquests by neighbors gradually weakening it further. Athenian democracy was probably not the first example of democracy in the ancient world, but it is the best-known early version, and it is from here that we draw the word and its governmental philosophy.

Another well-known example of early democracy was the Roman Republic. Like Athens, it wasnt what we would think of today as a full democracy. Again, only adult male citizens were eligible to participate. Italy continued the tradition in a few of its medieval city-based republics. Venice, and Florence particularly, had governmental systems that included political participation by the people, if in a limited way.

Democracy also found its way into monarchical European states through the concept of the parliament, which was a council that advised the monarch. For the most part, only those who already had power could participate in parliaments, though Sweden allowed peasants to participate in its council (the Riksdag) starting in the 15th century.

The Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries brought a greater questioning of established authority to mainstream philosophy and discourse. This trend had a strong impact on the fledgling United States, which, when it won its independence from Great Britain in 1783, set up a system of representative democracy to represent its people. France was also impacted by this model. The French Revolution in 1789 was an attempt to achieve democracy, though the country didnt achieve it until the mid-1800s.

It was not until the 20th century that universal or broader suffrage, or the right to vote, was extended in most countries, and it was in the 20th century that democracy spread. By the beginning of the 21st century, almost half of the countries of the world had some variety of democratic or near-democratic system.

Types of democracies are classified according to various distinguishing features, including constitutional democracy, democratic socialism, Jeffersonian democracy, liberal democracy, parliamentary democracy, or presidential democracy, to name a few.

Democracy is also used for non-governmental organizational systems, such as a workplace democracy, which applies democratic principles in professional contexts. An advocate of democracy or democratic values is called a democrat, not to be confused with a member of the U.S. Democratic party.

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Democracy | Definition of Democracy at Dictionary.com

In both a republic and a democracy, citizens are empowered to participate in a representational political system. They electpeople to represent and protect their interests in how the government functions.

In a republic, an official set of fundamental laws, like the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, prohibits the government from limiting or taking away certain inalienable rights of the people, even if that government was freely chosen by a majority of the people. In a pure democracy, the voting majority has almost limitless power over the minority.

The United States, like most modern nations, is neither a pure republic nor a pure democracy. Instead, it isa hybrid democratic republic.

The main difference between a democracy and a republic is the extent to which the people control the process of making laws under each form of government.

Pure Democracy

Republic

Power Held By

The population as a whole

Individual citizens

Making Laws

A voting majority has almost unlimited power to make laws. Minorities have few protections from the will of the majority.

The people elect representatives to make laws according to the constraints of a constitution.

Ruled By

The majority.

Laws made by elected representatives of the people.

Protection of Rights

Rights can be overridden by the will of the majority.

A constitution protects the rights of all people from the will of the majority.

Early Examples

Athenian democracy in Greece (500 BCE)

The Roman Republic (509 BCE)

Even when the delegates of the United States Constitutional Convention debated the question in 1787, the exact meanings of the terms republic and democracy remained unsettled. At the time, there was no term for a representative form of government created by the people rather than by a king. In addition, American colonists used the terms democracy and republic more or less interchangeably, as remains common today. In Britain, the absolute monarchy was giving way to a full-fledged parliamentary government. Had the Constitutional Convention been held two generations later, the framers of the U.S. Constitution, having been able to read the new constitution of Britain, might have decided that the British system with an expanded electoral system might allow America to meet its full potential for democracy. Thus, the U.S. might well have a parliament rather than a Congress today.

Founding Father James Madison may have best described the difference between a democracy and a republic:

The fact that the Founders intended that the United States should function as a representative democracy, rather than a pure democracy is illustrated in Alexander Hamiltons letter of May 19, 1777, to Gouverneur Morris.

In a pure democracy, all citizens who are eligible to vote take an equal part in the process of making laws that govern them. In a pure or direct democracy, the citizens as a whole have the power to make all laws directly at the ballot box. Today, some U.S. states empower their citizens to make state laws through a form of direct democracy known as the ballot initiative. Put simply, in a pure democracy, the majority truly does rule and the minority has little or no power.

The concept of democracy can be traced back to around 500 BCE in Athens, Greece. Athenian democracy was a true direct democracy, or mobocracy, under which the public voted on every law, with the majority having almost total control over rights and freedoms.

In a republic, the people elect representativesto make the laws and an executive to enforce those laws.While the majority still rules in the selection of representatives, an official charter lists and protects certain inalienable rights, thus protecting the minority from the arbitrary political whims of the majority. In this sense, republics like the United States function as representative democracies.

Perhaps as a natural outgrowth of Athenian democracy, the first documented representative democracy appeared around 509 BCE in the form of the Roman Republic. While the Roman Republics constitution was mostly unwritten and enforced by custom, it outlined a system of checks and balances between the different branches of government. This concept of separate governmental powers remains a feature of almost all modern republics.

The following statement is often used to define the United States' system of government: "The United States is a republic, not a democracy. This statement suggests that the concepts and characteristics of republics and democracies can never coexist in a single form of government. However, this is rarely the case. As in the United States, most republics function as blended representational democracies featuring a democracys political powers of the majority tempered by a republics system of checks and balances enforced by a constitution that protects the minority from the majority.

To say that the United States is strictly a democracy suggests that the minority is completely unprotected from the will of the majority, which is not correct.

As a republics most unique feature, a constitution enables it to protect the minority from the majority by interpreting and, if necessary, overturning laws made by the elected representatives of the people. In the United States, the Constitution assigns this function to the U.S. Supreme Court and the lower federal courts.

For example, in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court declared all state laws establishing separate racially segregated public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.

In its 1967 Loving v. Virginia ruling, the Supreme Court overturned all remaining state laws banning interracial marriages and relationships.

The constitutionally-granted power of the judicial branch to overturn laws made by the legislative branch illustrates the unique ability of a republics rule of law to protect the minority from a pure democracys rule of the masses.

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Republic vs. Democracy: What Is the Difference?

Black-clad security forces armed with riot shields advance on a mass of peaceful demonstrators. Rubber bullets and gas canisters fly. The embattled head of state, flanked by his top prosecutor and general, emerges from his estate to stake a claim for order. The scene looked like something out of a banana republic, but it unfolded in Washingtons Lafayette Square on June 1. And soon after, an obscure nonprofit got a call from a state attorney generals office, asking the perennial questions of the Donald Trump era: Can he do that? How can we stop that from happening here?

These are questions the nonprofit Protect Democracy was founded to answer. When the call came in (from a state the group declines to name), its lawyers got to work on an analysis of the Insurrection Act of 1807, aiming to equip local leaders to fight back if the Administration seeks to send in the military over their objections, as President Trump has threatened to do. And they began rounding up bipartisan signatories for a statement on behalf of Department of Justice veterans decrying Attorney General Bill Barrs conduct.

Since the beginning of the Trump presidency, Protect Democracy has cast itself in the role its name suggests: defender of Americas system of government against the threat of authoritarianism. Started by two former Obama White House lawyers who were concerned that the new President would undermine the rule of law, the group has filed lawsuits to block Trumps retaliation against critics and to curtail his use of emergency powers. It has organized groups of civil servants to speak out against what they say is Trumps politicization of law enforcement. And it has built bipartisan congressional support to rein in presidential powers.

Protect Democracy has notched some big wins. The groups lawsuits invalidated Trumps emergency declaration for the southern border and blocked the Administration from making it harder for low-income green-card holders to become citizens. They successfully argued in New York federal court that the Presidents retaliation against media outlets may violate the Constitution, and helped ensure that a defamation lawsuit brought by a former mistress could proceed in state court. Their advocacy has gotten states to reform election procedures and Congress to act to limit Executive power.

Its an impressive record for a three-year-old startup. They are innovative, imaginative, energetic and extremely effective, says Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and editor in chief of Lawfare, whose work with the group led to the release of the Watergate prosecutors road map that had been sealed for more than 40 years.

The June 1 spectacle at Lafayette Square seems to have brought some reticent figures closer to Protect Democracys view of things. Former President George W. Bush and former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis were among those who spoke out in favor of the protesters. When you see military helicopters above the streets of D.C., using tactics from war zones, using tear gas on peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights, says Ian Bassin, co-founder and executive director of Protect Democracy, these things so match what people imagine when they think of the toppling of democracies that it struck a chord.

From the beginning, however, Protect Democracy has argued the onset of authoritarianism in America would come not with a flash-bang grenade but with the whimper of institutions gradually succumbing to the erosion of long-standing norms. Ideas that seemed far-fetched three years ago have become routine: a President who declares himself immune to congressional or judicial oversight; whose Attorney General seeks to exempt the Presidents friends from responsibility while prosecuting his political enemies; whose lawyers argue in open court that he could, in fact, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without consequence. The events of recent days appear to validate the groups concerns, with Trumps former National Security Adviser accusing him of corrupting the electoral process and the Administration firing a U.S. prosecutor whose office was investigating the Presidents close associates. Trump continues to sow doubt about the integrity of the upcoming election, recently declaring on Twitter that it would be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history.

As the election nears, Protect Democracy is focused on securing the Nov. 3 contests against foreign and domestic meddling. The group, which is officially nonpartisan, is funded by foundations and individual donors, including the LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Boston-based investor Seth Klarman, who before Trump was the GOPs largest donor in New England. Protect Democracy is lobbying and advising states on election procedure with an eye to ensuring a legitimate result. Yet the group is also looking beyond Trump, seeing him as a symptom of a system whose weakened defenses leave it open to abuse, and figuring out what can be done to strengthen American democracy in the future, regardless of who is in the White House next year.

Trump tours a section of the border wall in Otay Mesa, Calif., on Sept. 18, 2019

Evan VucciAP

If you believed your government was slouching toward dictatorship, what would you do about it? The answer, to judge from Protect Democracys routine, can seem mundane. On a recent Monday, 55 people are assembled as squares on a screen in a Google Meet video chat. Long before COVID-19 turned nearly all white collar workers into video-chat adepts, Protect Democracy was a work-from-anywhere organization, its 66 employees scattered from coast to coast. (Bassin is based in the Bay Area, co-founder Justin Florence in Boston; the group maintains a lease on a WeWork space in D.C.)

But the topics on such calls reach to the highest levels of government. Im working on a letter calling on the Justice Department inspector general to open an investigation into Barrs involvement in Lafayette Square, Justin Vail, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, tells the team. Vail, a former Obama White House and Democratic Senate aide, tells the group hes assembled more than a thousand signatories, former federal prosecutors from Republican and Democratic Administrations.

These sorts of current and former government insiders are disdained by the President and his allies as the deep statepetty bureaucrats dedicated to undermining Trumps necessary disruption of the status quo. But a competent, nonpolitical civil service is an important component of democracy. In America, officials from the President to the lowest-ranking soldier swear an oath pledging loyalty not to any ruler, Administration or party, but to the Constitution itself.

For many civil servants, that nonpartisanship has traditionally extended from one Administration to the next, and even past their time in government. Its hard to overstate how unusualbasically unprecedentedit is to have former career officials speaking out in this way, says Ben Berwick, who spent six years in the DOJs Civil Division during the Obama Administration. He left a few months after Trump took office, and became one of Protect Democracys earliest hires. The group has now massed hundreds of DOJ alums on a series of letters like the one Vail is preparing. Among the most high-profile was one stating that any ordinary American who committed the acts described in Robert Muellers Russia report would have been prosecuted for obstruction of justice, and another deploring Barrs extraordinary move to request a lighter sentence for former Trump campaign aide Roger Stone.

The group says such letters have brought concrete changes. We have seen [current Justice officials] resign, withdraw from cases, object and file internal complaints as a result, Vail says. Its a reminder that people on the outside support them having the courage to stand up and continue to work with integrity. As the group was preparing its 2,500-signatory letter on the Stone case, Barr publicly distanced himself from the Presidenta sign, the group says, that he was feeling pressure in his ranks. The department subsequently backtracked on its sentencing recommendation. On June 23, a former prosecutor testified to Congress that Stones softened sentence had been the result of heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break because of his relationship to the President.

Protect Democracys founders, Bassin and Florence, both served in the White House counsels office during the Obama Administration. By the time Trump took office, both had left government and moved on to other thingsBassin to international antipoverty work, Florence to a comfortable gig at a top law firm. But as the new Presidents actions set off alarm bells, the two began corresponding. They realized that there was no single organization doing what they were talking about: safeguarding basic principles, like checks and balances, and the idea that no one is above the law, against a perceived threat to democracy itself.

Bassin and Florence began consulting scholars who study authoritarianism abroad, hoping on some level that experts would say they were out of their minds. But the scholars shared the same worries. The scary thing was that no one rolled their eyes; nobody said, Oh, come on, really, youre being hysterical,' Bassin says.

Experts pointed to places like Poland and Turkey, where authoritarian leaders won elections and turned their countries into what scholars of the region describe as Potemkin democracies by curtailing civil rights and undermining popular control of the government. Democracies today die in a much more subtle fashion than they used to, says Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky, co-author of the book How Democracies Die. Its pretty rare to see the generals all at once seize power, dissolve the constitution, and imprison dissidents and the press. Instead you see elected leaders graduallyimperceptibly to many citizenstransform the machinery of government to protect their friends and harass and punish their enemies.

Bassin recalls one early, telling example. Under Obama, one of his jobs had been to advise Executive Branch officials on how to follow rules set out in thick binders and handed down from Administration to Administration starting with President Eisenhowers in the 1950s. Many werent laws so much as norms and codes intended to embody the spirit of public service. Among the precepts, for example, is a 14-page memo dating to the Carter Administration that lays out specific rules for when and how White House officials could contact the Justice Department, to avoid the perception of politics influencing law enforcement. In February 2017, then White House chief of staff Reince Priebus contacted the FBI to ask the agency to publicly refute a New York Times report about contacts between Trump associates and Russian agents, and the White House openly acknowledged he had made the contact. It was already clear back thenbefore Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, before Mueller began his investigation, before Ukraine and impeachment and everything elsethat the new Administration was not interested in the binders and memos, the rules and norms, that had prevailed for generations.

Bassin and Florence wanted their organization to be bipartisan. It really is something that Republicans and Democrats, all people of good faith, should be able to agree on, that the President is not a monarch who is above accountability of any kind, says Jamila Benkato, who joined the group after clerking for a federal judge in California. But most of the groups early hires were liberals. Even Trump-skeptical conservatives wanted to give the new President a chance to grow into the job. And the group has struggled to establish a public identity that transcends its liberal roots.

Yet the mission has attracted some Republicans. Protect Democracys employees include a former GOP presidential campaign operative and consultant for the Koch brothers political outfit; a former clerk to the conservative federal judge Edith Brown Clement; and a former GOP Senate staffer and writer for the conservative Weekly Standard. In March, the group assembled 37 former Republican members of Congress and Administration officials to file a friend-of-the-court brief in Trump v. Vance, arguing that the Presidents accountants must comply with a subpoena for documents related to his hush-money payments to alleged mistresses.

From a conservative standpoint, its clear to me that the President is offending the rule of law generally and the Constitution specifically, says Stuart Gerson, who headed the DOJs Civil Division under President George H.W. Bush. Gerson worked with Protect Democracy on its successful lawsuit in a conservative court in Texas, which thwarted Trumps attempt to build his border wall without permission or funding from Congress. Im an apostle of the unitary executiveI argued all the war-powers cases in the Bush Administration, Gerson says of the idea that the Constitution gives the President expansive powers over the workings of the Executive Branch. But that [doctrine] puts the President in charge of the Executive Branch, not the other two.

Protect Democracy has organized former Justice Department officials to speak out against Barr, left, and President Trump

Doug MillsThe New York Times/Redux

Sometime in the coming weeks, the Supreme Court is set to rule on Trump v. Vance and two related cases having to do with the validity of subpoenas into the Presidents private conduct. The cases will test the idea that no one is above the law, by resolving whether a President can be investigated and held accountable for any activities, even those that precede or have nothing to do with the office. Protect Democracys advocates say the cases are part of a broader set of questions about presidential power, which they have been fighting to constrain.

One of Trumps first moves as President was the creation of an election-integrity commission, which sought to examine allegations of voting abuse, like his baseless claim that the 2016 election was tainted by millions of illegal votes. Working with other advocacy groups, Protect Democracy sued based on a technicalitythe Administrations failure to follow the Paperwork Reduction Act, which mandates the procedures for establishing such commissionsand informed states they were not required to provide the Administration with the voter data it sought. The commission, Protect Democracy argued, represented not a good-faith effort to secure the vote but an attempt to sow doubt based on a nonexistent problem. Within a few months, the commission was shuttered.

Later that year, when Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff convicted of contempt of court for racially profiling Latinos, Protect Democracy filed a brief arguing the pardon was unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed to appoint a private attorney to argue the matter. And when the Administration released a report claiming that immigrants were responsible for most acts of terrorisminformation Trump cited in his 2017 address to Congressthe group sued based on an obscure statute, the Information Quality Act, thats typically used by Big Business to dispute environmental regulations. It was a legally creative approach to a vexing question: If the government decides to simply make up statistics, does the public have any recourse? While that litigation is still pending, the Justice Department admitted in court that the terrorism report was inaccurate.

When the former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos sued Trump for defamation in 2017 after he called her a liar for accusing him of sexual assault, Protect Democracy filed the only outside brief, arguing the President was not immune from civil lawsuits. It was a little-noticed case, but one the group thought could establish a dangerous precedent. In ruling Zervos suit could go forward, the court drew extensively on Protect Democracys arguments. It is the first time a court has ruled the President is subject to civil lawsuits in state court.

In October 2018, Protect Democracy filed another lawsuit on behalf of PEN America, a journalists organization, arguing that Trump was violating the First Amendment by revoking press credentials to punish journalists and threatening media businesses bottom lines: stalling the proposed merger of CNNs parent company, raising postal rates on Amazon (whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns the Washington Post) and threatening to revoke broadcast licenses. In March, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled the suit could go forward.

Over the course of this presidency, Protect Democracy has broadened its purview, on the theory that threats to American democracy do not begin or end with Trump, and that many of the weaknesses he is exploiting predate him. Presidents of both parties have steadily expanded executive power, while Congress has willingly ceded more and more of its constitutional authorities. Protect Democracy has worked with both parties in Congress to reclaim some power from the Executive Branch, teaming up with GOP Senator Mike Lee on a bill putting new limitations on presidential emergency powers. The legislation advanced out of committee on a bipartisan 11-2 vote. Protect Democracy is also collaborating with advocates who have been working for years to reassert congressional authority over war powers; the group filed lawsuits to force the Administration to release the memos justifying its military strikes on Syrian chemical-weapons sites and the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

In 2018, Protect Democracy broke away from its federal work and intervened in recounts under way in two states, Georgia and Florida, where candidates were overseeing elections in which they were also competing. In Georgia, their lawsuit helped prompt gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp to resign as secretary of state. Since then, the group has sought to find and fix weaknesses in voting systems, lobbying and advocating for new voting machines in South Carolina and Pennsylvania. It has also tackled voter suppression, using an old statute aimed at the Ku Klux Klan to stop a Trump ally from harassing Latino voters in Virginia and working with a North Carolina group, Forward Justice, to bring a lawsuit that would force the state to re-enfranchise felons.

More than a year ago, Protect Democracy formed a bipartisan election task force to examine such threats and recommend responses. Ironically, one of the crises they originally decided not to plan for was a potential pandemic. Now, as COVID-19 has thrown states election plans into doubt, the group has made a set of recommendations for moving forward with mail balloting and other changes.

For now, Protect Democracy says it wants to ensure that the November election is free and fair, producing a result that can be widely accepted as legitimate regardless of who wins. Whenever Trump leaves office, the group envisions a brief window for Congress to pass reforms, similar to the burst of legislation that followed President Nixons resignation. The organization has been gearing up for this with a 100 days agenda of recommendations for the next President, including changes to election systems, prohibitions on election interference and campaign-finance reform.

In a democracy, the people are the ultimate check on power. Protect Democracys central argument is that institutions dont protect themselves; people have to be activated to use the tools the system provides. In a timely metaphor, the groups leaders compare authoritarianism to a virus sweeping the globe: first you treat the patient by activating the bodys immune system to fight off the illness; over time, you formulate a vaccine to provide immunity in the future.

When Ian and I first started talking about this, we thought it would be an organization that lasted however long Trump was in office, then folded up shop, says Florence, the groups co-founder and legal director. What weve learned is that were seeing a moment that requires a generation-long response. Ultimately, weve got to rebuild our institutions to make our system more resistant to a future authoritarian-minded leader.

With reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Josh Rosenberg

This appears in the July 06, 2020 issue of TIME.

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Write to Molly Ball at molly.ball@time.com.

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Trench Lawfare: Inside the Battles to Save Democracy From the Trump Administration - TIME