The first U.S. presidential election in the era of deepfakes is presenting officials with challenges never before seen at a time when tech giants are scaling back their cyber-defenses. Fabricated images and audio clips designed to sway voters are raising alarms in the days leading up to the Republican Primary in South Carolina on Feb 25 and Super Tuesday on March 5, when both parties will hold primaries in a number of states.
“Are protections in place sufficient to thwart” the influence of targeted deepfakes this year? Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. “The capacity for individuals and nation-states to generate more misleading content that is micro-targeted and harder to detect could happen.” A broad swath of tech companies acknowledged the threat in a major way late Friday. Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL GOOG Google, Amazon.com Inc.
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Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
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Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
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OpenAI, X, Adobe Inc.
ADBE,
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International Business Machines Corp.
IBM,
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Tik Tok and others signed a pact to voluntarily adopt “reasonable precautions” to prevent AI tools from being used to disrupt democratic elections worldwide. In recent weeks, OpenAI, Google and Meta have taken steps to limit the abuse of AI in elections. AI-generated deepfakes have started making their way into presidential campaign ads and elections. Last month, a doctored robocall from a deepfaked President Biden attempted to discourage voting during the New Hampshire primary. That robocall was detected by security experts and covered by U.S. media, but others have probably gone undiscovered. The threats appear to be more ominous, if not dangerous, outside the U.S. Days before Slovakia’s elections in November, AI-generated audio recordings impersonated a liberal candidate discussing plans to raise beer prices and rig the election. The false narrative spread quickly across social media. This month, Meta’s Oversight Board of independent academics, lawyers and experts who oversee onerous content decisions on the platform, criticized Meta for its “incoherent” and “confusing” policies on manipulated media after an altered video of President Biden spread on Facebook. Meta decided not to remove the edited video, which showed Biden apparently touching his granddaughter inappropriately. In reality, Biden was placing an “I Voted” sticker on her chest. “The inability to trust our senses could lead to distrust and paranoia, further breaking down social and political relations between people,” Sohrob Kazerounian, distinguished AI Researcher at Vectra AI, said.Evolution of political meddling online As technology has evolved, so have the methods employed by individuals and nation-states to manipulate it during elections — dating back to robocalls, targeted hit mail, and specious internet rumors. One such robocall targeted then-Republican candidate John McCain before the 2000 South Carolina pr …
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“Are protections in place sufficient to thwart” the influence of targeted deepfakes this year? Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. “The capacity for individuals and nation-states to generate more misleading content that is micro-targeted and harder to detect could happen.” A broad swath of tech companies acknowledged the threat in a major way late Friday. Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL GOOG Google, Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
-1.87%,
Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
-0.92%,
Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
-1.09%,
OpenAI, X, Adobe Inc.
ADBE,
-2.50%,
International Business Machines Corp.
IBM,
-1.78%,
Tik Tok and others signed a pact to voluntarily adopt “reasonable precautions” to prevent AI tools from being used to disrupt democratic elections worldwide. In recent weeks, OpenAI, Google and Meta have taken steps to limit the abuse of AI in elections. AI-generated deepfakes have started making their way into presidential campaign ads and elections. Last month, a doctored robocall from a deepfaked President Biden attempted to discourage voting during the New Hampshire primary. That robocall was detected by security experts and covered by U.S. media, but others have probably gone undiscovered. The threats appear to be more ominous, if not dangerous, outside the U.S. Days before Slovakia’s elections in November, AI-generated audio recordings impersonated a liberal candidate discussing plans to raise beer prices and rig the election. The false narrative spread quickly across social media. This month, Meta’s Oversight Board of independent academics, lawyers and experts who oversee onerous content decisions on the platform, criticized Meta for its “incoherent” and “confusing” policies on manipulated media after an altered video of President Biden spread on Facebook. Meta decided not to remove the edited video, which showed Biden apparently touching his granddaughter inappropriately. In reality, Biden was placing an “I Voted” sticker on her chest. “The inability to trust our senses could lead to distrust and paranoia, further breaking down social and political relations between people,” Sohrob Kazerounian, distinguished AI Researcher at Vectra AI, said.Evolution of political meddling online As technology has evolved, so have the methods employed by individuals and nation-states to manipulate it during elections — dating back to robocalls, targeted hit mail, and specious internet rumors. One such robocall targeted then-Republican candidate John McCain before the 2000 South Carolina pr …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]