Democratic elections are under threat from Artificial Intelligence, says Charles Darwin University (CDU) Computational and Artificial Intelligence expert associate professor Niusha Shafiabady.
As AI becomes more powerful, its ability to imitate real people has become truly alarming.
Generative AI (GenAI) is capable of replicating faces, voices or even live footage that could fool the individual’s family, let alone strangers.
US congresspeople, Romanian ministers, Taylor Swift and Andrew Forrest are just some of the recent victims of deepfakes, AI-generated videos and images used for revenge, scams or to spread misinformation.
AI in social media a democratic vulnerability
“Like it or not, we are affected by what we come across in social media platforms,” associate professor Shafiabady said.
“The future wars are not planned by missiles or tanks but they can easily run on social media platforms by influencing what people think and do.
“This applies to election results.”
Tech giant Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has already raised concerns over the oncoming elections in the US, Taiwan and India being unduly affected by AI propaganda campaigns, potentially funded by superpowers with vested interests like China, Russia or North Korea.
So, what can be done to fight back against this kind of misinformation?
“Governments should enforce more strict regulations to fight misinformation,” Shafiabady said.
“Things like finding triggers that show signs of unwanted interference. Blocking and stopping the unauthorised or malicious trends.
“Enforcing regulations on social media platforms to produce reports to the government to demonstrate and measure the impact and the flow of the information on the matters that affect the important issues such as elections and healthcare.
“Enforcing regulations on the social media platforms to monitor and stop the fake information sources or malicious actors.”
The Brookings Institution think tank takes its recommendations a step further, asserting tech companies must also play an active role in reducing the impact of AI campaigns.
“Interventions ranging from legislative measures targeting election-specific deepfakes to voter education initiatives are imperative,” Valerie Wirtschafter writes in an executive summary from a report titled ‘The impact of generative AI in a global election year’.
“Tech companies should also play a central role, including through the implementation of imperfect technical solutions to identify the origins of generated media.
“While these interventions may not eliminate the challenges posed by generative AI, they represent progress toward managing a complex issue during a critical election year.”