Future political campaigns will increasingly utilize artificial intelligence generated content to mislead potential voters. About 1 billion voters will be going to the polls in 2024 in the US, India, the UK, the EU, Indonesia and Russia. However, neither AI companies nor governments have made serious efforts to protect and legitimize election information. There are concerns about fundraising scams using generative AI, a micro-targeting tsunami. With AI lowering the costs of content, specific messages can be aimed at undecided or unmotivated voters to induce them to reach decisions. Incendiary emotional fuel will be poured on voters by political parties to anger them against opposing candidates. Unfortunately, AI has the potential to influence elections and destroy democracy by providing a constant barrage of false information for all media. It could persuade and manipulate voters through its false interactions which do not cease until the elections.
A rise in misinformation, fraud and lies is virtually certain as AI is utilized by greater numbers of people. Though there is more concern about existential risks, the spread of misinformation is a more imminent problem. Lies, conspiracy theories and misinformation have been prominent on the internet for years, but AI will make these falsehoods more frequent and compelling. There have been estimates that AI generated content could soon account for 99 percent of all information online, making it even more difficult to moderate. An expert in AI, Professor Kate Starbird, noted that 1) AI is great at churning out misinformation that sounds reasonable but has little regard for accuracy. 2) Generative AI helps those who deliberately seek to mislead. 3) Generative AI models themselves offer a new target for those who want to shape the information debate on a subject. However, there are measures that individuals, companies and governments can take to mitigate the risks of misinformation. Google has already declared that it will require prominent disclosures for all AI generated election ads.
To spread disinformation and lies using AI is also very easy and inexpensive. An AI developer tried this, employing widely available AI tools to create anti-Russian tweets and articles to spread propaganda. He found it cost him just $400 to fabricate an AI machine to counteract Russian media propaganda and lies with similar responses. The CounterCloud rebuttal effort was entirely designed by AI to highlight the threat of mass-produced disinformation using OpenAI’s text generation. Any state actor or non-actor can easily devise a campaign of lies and propaganda to capture the attention of the internet population. Political campaigns are also using AI generated images and videos that are often fake.
Nobel Prize Laureate in economics Paul Krugman believes AI will not only transform the economy but will also fix the problem of our huge deficit and national debt by increasing our productivity significantly. Krugman is not sure the new generative AI is really intelligence as much as it is extrapolation from pattern recognition or enhanced auto correct. But whatever it is labeled, it can still save highly skilled workers considerable time and make them more creative and productive. Krugman does not think AI will result in mass unemployment along with our increased productivity, though obviously some people will lose their jobs. These will mainly be high-end administrative employees. As autonomous vehicles become more accepted, blue-collar jobs will also be lost. However, economic growth and the boost in GDP from AI should make our debt less of a concern, with faster growth enhancing revenue and reducing the budget deficit.
Ready or not, artificial intelligence is going to open up a whole new world for humanity. What we do with it remains to be seen.
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Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020