There are big fears that AI deepfakes could be used by foreign enemies or political operatives to influence elections. Just how worried should we be?
t was January when fears that this year’s US presidential election could see the world leap from the political fake news era into the AI deepfake era took hold.
The Federal Communications Commission fined him $US6 million for trying to defraud voters, and he is facing numerous felony and misdemeanour indictments that could land him in jail. One can only guess at the impact that AI deepfakes have had in the US and other election campaigns, but the fear is real. And it is raising questions of where the line is between nefarious misinformation and legitimate satire and parody.
“The hearings made one thing abundantly clear: tech giants have little interest in genuinely mitigating the threats their AI poses to our society.” Trump also caused a flurry of headlines when he began posting AI-generated and altered images that tested the fine line between humour and misinformation.
It is unclear which platform was used to generate the images and others posted by Trump, including a picture of Harris apparently addressing a huge communist rally in Chicago.Of all the major platforms, it is Musk’s xAI tool called Grok that appears to make it easiest to generate images that look like real people in fake scenarios.
A patchwork of state-based deepfake laws have been introduced in the US to mandate disclosures in political ads when deepfake content is used. Candidates in Minnesota caught ignoring the requirement will have to forfeit their office or nomination, while those in Florida, Mississippi, New Mexico and Alabama risk imprisonment.
“Foreign actors seeking to interfere in elections – who already operate outside the law – won’t pay any attention to the ban anyway,” she says.Weaver says responsible use of generative AI could have positive implications for democracy, and disclosure of its use should be mandatory.
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