This year's presidential contest is already inundated with a deluge of disinformation, and the problem is likely to worsen.
Paul Carpenter, depicted here in New Orleans on February 23, revealed he was employed in January to use AI software to mimic President Joe Biden's voice to deter New Hampshire Democrat voters from participating in the state's presidential primary. As the U.S. presidential race approaches, the spread of misinformation is expected to intensify.
In Moldova, a spurious video suggested that a pro-Western president was actually pro-Russian. In Bangladesh, a conservative Muslim nation, a female lawmaker was depicted in a bikini. In Slovakia, a falsified audio recording made it seem as though an anti-Moscow candidate intended to double the price of beer.
Though no fabricated videos of Joe Biden boasting a bikini bod or promoting beer price hikes have surfaced yet, this year’s presidential contest is already engulfed in a torrent of disinformation, with the potential for escalation.
As these international instances illustrate, "deepfakes" represent a significant menace. These are falsified ideas and images generated by artificial intelligence. "Artificial intelligence is exacerbating the threat of election disinformation globally, enabling anyone with a smartphone and a malicious imagination to create fake, but convincing, content aimed at deceiving voters," reports The Associated Press.
On Capitol Hill, a Senate committee has approved three bipartisan bills that would establish some ground rules for the use of AI in campaign ads, including stringent requirements for transparency. Senate leader Chuck Schumer, supporting the legislation, warned, "AI has the potential to jaundice or even entirely discredit our election systems. If deepfakes proliferate and no one trusts the election results, our democracy is in peril."
Deepfakes are not the only threat to election integrity. "Cheap fakes," which are real sounds and images edited to distort their true meaning, also pose a significant risk. This was evident during Biden's recent trip to Europe, where the Republican National Committee disseminated meticulously manipulated video clips of the president to portray him as senile and incoherent.
Fact-checkers at the Washington Post have labeled the Republican propaganda as "especially pernicious... because it aims to create a false narrative that doesn't reflect the actual events." However, the GOP's efforts would not have succeeded without the assistance of right-wing media outlets, which eagerly circulated the doctored videos, and Donald Trump's supporters, who widely shared them on social media.
Mainstream platforms like Facebook and Instagram claim to combat election-related falsehoods, but they often act as co-conspirators, significantly reducing their teams of fact-checkers and profiting from the traffic generated by cheap fakes. "The persistent nature of the misleading videos demonstrates how major tech platforms and partisan media are collaborating in the 2024 election cycle, keeping viral stories in people’s feeds even after they’ve been proven misleading or false," reports NBC.
"In a familiar playbook," NBC explains, "hyperpartisan outlets continuously push misleading information on their platforms and social media, motivating followers who are predisposed to believe these outlets to amplify it further. This inundates tech platforms, which are either unwilling or unable to correct the record swiftly enough. Consequently, the bad information continues to outpace efforts to fact-check it."
Misinformation is not solely generated by Republican operatives and their allies. Moscow has interfered in previous elections, attempting to support Trump, and they are at it again. According to secret Kremlin documents obtained by the Washington Post, "Russia is seeking to undermine Western support for Ukraine and disrupt the domestic politics of the United States and European countries through propaganda campaigns supporting isolationist and extremist policies."
Some senior Republicans are deeply concerned that these "isolationist and extremist" ideas are being echoed by members of their own party. Rep. Michael McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned on CNN, "Russian propaganda has infiltrated the United States, unfortunately, and has infected a significant portion of my party's base."
So, what can be done to contain this tide of disinformation? There are no easy solutions. Mainstream journalists have an increasing responsibility to investigate and document cheap fakes and deepfakes. Social media platforms must also place warning labels on falsehoods, even if it costs them customers.
Congress should pass the bipartisan measures to enhance transparency and help voters and election officials understand how they are being manipulated. Voters, especially swing voters in swing states, need to educate themselves and make decisions based on facts, not fiction.
However, the torrent shows few signs of abating. "People are constantly coming up with new ways to try to break the systems," Natasha Crampton, a Microsoft executive working on AI, told Politico. "I'm terrified," admitted Oren Etzioni, a prominent AI researcher, in the Times. "There is a very good chance we are going to see a tsunami of misinformation."
