AI-powered deepfakes threaten to overturn elections around the world

In 2024, voters in at least 64 countries will head to the polls in crucial elections. From the United States to India, Venezuela to South Africa, countries representing nearly 50 percent of the world’s population will hold national elections this year, and the results will shape the contours of global affairs for the rest of the decade and beyond. It will be. .

This series of elections will determine how serious the planet is in tackling climate change, or how we work together to address global issues like immigration, food security, and global conflict. There’s a lot of talk about these elections, but always remember. 2024 will be the year that AI-generated deepfakes alter and, in many cases, change the outcome of democratic elections around the world.

Simply put, 2024 will be remembered as the year when fake news and misinformation became widespread.

New Hampshire voters recently received a robocall from U.S. President Joe Biden urging them to drop out of the state’s presidential primary. The voice synthesized by artificial intelligence bore a striking resemblance to the real Joe Biden. The paper advised recipients to withhold their primary votes and falsely claimed that doing so would prevent them from participating in the subsequent November general election.

The incident highlighted growing concerns about the ability of generative AI to facilitate the spread of misinformation and orchestrate large-scale deepfake campaigns. In this example, the source of the fake call was eventually revealed, and it was right here in the United States. Imagine the havoc such a maneuver would wreak in countries with far weaker institutions and weaker or non-existent independent media.

Consider Venezuela, home to perhaps the most sophisticated AI-driven misinformation and propaganda machine in the world. The Venezuelan system employs an army of thousands of “propagandists” combined with multilingual deepfake digital avatars. This deadly combination aims to overturn elections at home and potentially change outcomes around the world.

newsweek We spoke to former Colombian President Iván Duque about the threat AI-generated synthetic media and fake news pose to this year’s global elections.

“2024 will be the year in history when a record number of people will vote in elections, and this historic milestone will be marked by the impact of the democratization of social media, AI and algorithms,” Duque said. Ta. “Building effective controls to identify and prevent misinformation caused by foreign actors to manipulate election results is essential to the future of our democracy. , we all run the risk of falling into our own artificial democracy.”

For example, consider the horrific events that occurred in Hong Kong in February. In this case, a company’s treasurer was fooled by a digitally created avatar that imitated the company’s chief financial officer (and other colleagues the employee knew in real life). He transferred more than $25 million to scammers. Technology is already so sophisticated that it can trick someone into believing they are talking to real people they know, but deepfakes from politicians that most voters only know through social media or television Imagine the impact a video could have on swaying an election. voters.

To learn what election officials, news organizations, and social media platforms should do to combat this existential assault on political news and elections. newsweek We spoke with Louis Steinberg, former chief technology officer at TD Ameritrade and founder of CTM Insights, a cybersecurity research institute. “It will become increasingly difficult to spot fakes.” [so] What news organizations need to do is turn that around. Instead of trying to find out what’s fake, focus on what’s real. ”

The key, Steinberg said, is to create digital fingerprints of our voices and images, similar to the facial recognition technology that authenticates our phones and tablets, and to identify certain words as personal. We believe this will assure the public that what was said was in the order in which the person said it. She actually said them. “There’s a new way to prove that the words I’m hearing are actually the words that came out of your mouth. And you can even digitally sign the audio stream,” he said.

Steinberg’s antidote to AI-assisted identity hijacking could be an effective safeguard, but it seems too far away to ensure a 2024 election schedule. That’s why Steinberg sees his responsibility eventually slipping away, at least in the short term. social media company. “Social Media Platform [need to be] They are responsible for fact-checking the information they host,” Steinberg said.

Weaponized disinformation has always been a part of politics, but this year AI-generated deepfakes have reached a tipping point, becoming so real and effective that they could ultimately affect elections around the world. likely to change the outcome.

Aric Wierson is a six-time Emmy Award-winning television producer who served as senior media and political advisor to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He advises corporate clients on communications strategies in the United States, Africa, and Latin America.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.