Disruptive Use of AI Targeting Elections
Earlier this year, the US “Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency” (CISA) published a warning about AI generated disinformation and its negative impact on elections; earlier this month the US FBI would follow with a warning about nation state adversaries doing the same. The most common assumption is that the goal of using generative AI is to promote or malign a particular candidate; however, the primary motivation of nation-state interference is to generate disinformation to attack confidence in the democratic processes by targeting election methodology, offices, officials, and vendors.
Generative AI capabilities will likely not introduce new risks to the election process, but they will amplify existing risks to the election infrastructure. AI assisted tactics to watch out for are AI generated or altered deep fakes or artificial videos, images, audio voice cloning, and written text. Malicious nation state actors use these AI-generated media forms for sophisticated tricks and phishing campaigns, and to accelerate and enhance disinformation with startlingly authentic looking content, grammatically correct native language, and devious chatbots. These amplified threats generally manifest in speed-to-delivery, extremely judicious audience targeting, and the minimal technical knowledge now needed to generate disinformation at scale. The primary outlet for these attacks is the popular social media sources as well entertainment-news sources prone to sensationalism, and questionable journalistic principles.
According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), by 2023, over 50% of US internet users get their news from social media, and 64% said disinformation (fake news) is widespread on those platforms. The issue is a strong enough concern that as of March, there are over 100 bills in 39 state legislatures containing provisions intended to regulate the potential for AI to produce election disinformation (Voting Rights Lab). Accordingly, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and other key federal agencies, are actively working with social media companies to remove disinformation from their sites as the November presidential election nears.
Social media and entertainment-news sources are rife with these generated hoaxes, nation-state sponsored disinformation, and stories with heavy bias that are bereft of facts and as such, are the least reliable resources. However, there are trustworthy news sources out there that are generally considered unbiased and subscribe to high journalistic standards such as:
Reuters
the Associated Press
BBC
Other sources that may show some bias, but still subscribe to high journalistic standards are NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list; there are many other trustworthy news sources, you just need to find them.
While it’s debatable what the threat Generative AI may be societally, AI generated disinformation is a very real threat to 2024 elections and the democratic process. Getting your news from trustworthy news sources as opposed to social media or entertainment-news sources is your best defense.
