Artificial intelligence and elections
As artificial intelligence (AI) has become more mainstream, there is growing concern about how this will influence elections. Potential targets of AI include election processes, election offices, election officials and election vendors.[1]
Tactics
[edit]Generative AI capabilities allow creation of misleading content. Examples of this include text-to-video, deepfake videos, text-to-image, AI-altered image, text-to-speech, voice cloning, and text-to-text. In the context of an election, a deepfake video of a candidate may propagate information that the candidate does not endorse.[2] Chatbots could spread misinformation related to election locations, times or voting methods. In contrast to malicious actors in the past, these techniques require little technical skill and can spread rapidly.[3]
United States
[edit]2024 elections
[edit]Regulation of AI with regard to elections is unlikely to see a resolution for most of the 2024 election season.[4][5] The campaign for the 2024 Republican nominee,[6] Donald Trump, has used deepfake videos of political opponents in campaign ads and fake images showing Trump with black supporters.[4][7] In 2023, while he was still running for re-election, the presidential campaign of Joe Biden prepared a task force to respond to AI images and videos.[8]
A Democratic consultant working for Dean Phillips also admitted to using AI to generate a robocall which used Joe Biden's voice to discourage voter participation.[9]
Regulation
[edit]US states have attempted regulation of AI use in elections and campaigns with varying degrees of success.[10]
Midjourney, an AI image-generator, has started blocking users from creating fake images of the 2024 US Presidential candidates.[11] Research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that image generators such as Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus, DreamStudio, and Microsoft's Image Creator create images that constitute election disinformation in 41% of the test text prompts they tried.[citation needed]
References
[edit]- ^ Risk in Focus: Generative A.I. and the 2024 Election Cycle (PDF) (Report). Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. 2024-01-18. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
- ^ McMillan, Robert; Corse, Alexa; Volz, Dustin (2024-02-15). "New Era of AI Deepfakes Complicates 2024 Elections". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2024-02-18. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
- ^ Swenson, Ali; Chan, Kelvin (2024-03-14). "Election disinformation takes a big leap with AI being used to deceive worldwide". Associated Press. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
- ^ a b Mansfield, Erin (2024-03-11). "AI deepfakes are part of the 2024 election. Will the federal government regulate them?". USA Today. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
- ^ Fung, Brian (2024-02-14). "AI could disrupt the election. Congress is running out of time to respond". CNN Business. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
- ^ Colvin, Jill (2024-03-12). "Trump wins delegates needed to become GOP's presumptive nominee for third straight election". Associated Press. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
- ^ Brown, Matt; Klepper, David (2024-03-08). "Fake images made to show Trump with Black supporters highlight concerns around AI and elections". Associated Press. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
- ^ O'Sullivan, Donie; Fung, Brian (2023-11-30). "First on CNN: Biden campaign prepares legal fight against election deepfakes". CNN. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
- ^ Verma, Pranshu; Kornfield, Meryl (2024-03-02). "Democratic operative admits to commissioning Biden AI robocall in New Hampshire". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2024-02-27. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
- ^ "Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Elections and Campaigns". www.ncsl.org. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
- ^ O'Brien, Matt (2024-03-13). "AI image-generator Midjourney blocks images of Biden and Trump as election looms". Associated Press. Retrieved 2024-03-18.