AI experts and tech-savvy political scientists are sounding the alarm about the unpredictable state of affairs involving generative AI tools like ChatGPT ahead of the 2024 US presidential election.
"America is not prepared for that"
Fox News on May 15 quoted Mr. AJ Nash, Vice President of AI at ZeroFox (based in Minnesota, USA), warning that Americans are not prepared for the prospect of dealing with artificial AI. According to him, artificial AI can not only quickly compose emails, messages, and video clips for election campaigns, but can also be turned into dangerous tools.
Governments race to regulate AI tools
“Generative AI offers a significant leap forward in the ability to create audio and video content. When you can do that at scale and distribute it across social media platforms, it has a huge impact,” Nash explains. Among the many possibilities that generative AI like ChatGPT can do, there are many that have a profound impact on elections and voting in a modern country like the United States.
ChatGPT can generate a lot of content in a short time
Illustration photo: REUTERS
For example, ChatGPT can create automated voice messages that mimic a candidate’s voice, instructing voters to vote on the wrong day; release audio recordings of candidates confessing to a crime or creating racist content; create video clips of a person giving a speech or interview that never actually happened; and computer-generated images based on local news reports that falsely claim a candidate has dropped out of the race.
“What if Elon Musk himself called you and convinced you to vote for a particular candidate?” said Dr. Oren Etzioni, former CEO and founder of the Allen Institute for AI (headquartered in Washington state, USA). “A lot of people would listen to him. But he didn’t make that call, AI did,” Dr. Etzioni pointed out.
Danger from the enemy
Mr. Petko Stoyanov, global chief technology officer of the cybersecurity company Forcepoint (headquartered in Texas, USA), warned that foreign powers could take advantage of generative AI to try to sabotage the 2024 US election. "What happens if a foreign power, a cybercriminal organization or a state, tries to impersonate someone? What is the level of impact? Do we have a way to respond?", Mr. Stoyanov raised questions that need to be addressed. According to him, the US will witness a wave of misinformation from foreign sources during the election period.
Senator Pete Ricketts (Nebraska) also warned of the risk of pro-China organizations using deepfakes (a technology that creates fabricated images and videos to look and sound like real people and events) during the 2024 election season. "They absolutely have this capability, and that's something we need to be really vigilant about," Ricketts told Fox News.
Since the beginning of the year, fake news generated by AI has taken social media by storm. Examples include fake videos of Biden making offensive remarks about transgender people, or fabricated images showing children studying Satanism in libraries. Many people even believed it when photos of former President Donald Trump’s police records appeared on the internet, even though he was not photographed for a crime. Other AI-generated images showed Trump resisting arrest, which were also fake.
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) introduced a bill that would require candidates to notify voters about AI-generated advertising images. Clark also co-sponsored a bill that would require anyone creating a composite image to include a watermark that clearly identifies the source of the image. Several states have also released their own proposals to address deepfake concerns.
Senator Ricketts said that what can be done now is to increase the education of Americans about the risks of artificial AI. According to him, the US government can cooperate with universities to improve the ability to detect fake images before the election begins.
ChatGPT Upgraded
According to Mashable, OpenAI (California, USA) has just made an important upgrade to ChatGPT, according to which this tool can now connect and surf the web while operating. This allows ChatGPT to update the latest information and give more authentic answers. Currently, corporations such as Amazon in the US are hiring AI engineers to build and integrate interfaces like ChatGPT, serving exchanges with customers.
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