(CNN) President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign has often been hailed as the first campaign to win the White House by effectively using social media as a mobilization tool. Fifteen years later, technology has gone from being a new addition to political campaigns to transcending all dimensions.
A revolutionary and largely untested technology now appears poised to revolutionize political campaigns: artificial intelligence. But ahead of the 2024 presidential election, computer-generated content that blurs the line between fact and fiction is causing concern.
The Republican National Committee threw down the challenge last week when it released a 30-second ad in response to President Joe Biden’s official announcement that he would seek re-election in 2024.
Uploaded to YouTube, the ad imagines a dystopian United States after the 46th president is re-elected, with immigrants flooding across the U.S. border, soldiers lining the streets of lockdown cities, A grim image was shown of Chinese jets raining bombs on Taiwan.
However, none of the ominous images in the video are real and were all created using AI technology.
Last week, CNN showed an ad to potential voters in Washington, DC. Some were able to identify that the images in it were fake, while others were not. One person CNN spoke to after seeing scenes of heavily armed soldiers patrolling the streets of San Francisco during the lockdown caused by a surge in crime and the “fentanyl crisis” said the envisioned episode actually happened. I was wondering what happened.
That’s where the problem lies, says Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Republican National Committee released a 30-second ad featuring an AI-generated image in response to President Joe Biden’s official announcement that he will seek re-election in 2024.
Fictional realities and deceptive advertising are nothing new in political campaigns. Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign spawned the so-called “Daisy Girl” attack ads. This was what Nuclear Apocalypse envisioned as a triumph for his opponent, Barry Goldwater.
But AI will make things even worse, says Farid.
“We enter this world where anything, every image, sound, video, text, anything can be fake. Nothing has to be real,” he said. .”
Farid pointed out that the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape was released on the final day of the 2016 presidential election. In it, Trump boasted in graphic terms that he could sexually assault women. The footage led to a rare opportunity for Trump to apologize for his actions.
Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, told CNN he doesn’t see it as particularly problematic for the RNC to use AI to explain its bleak vision of America’s future. But he expressed concern that it could help pave the way for more nefarious uses of technology, such as making it appear like politicians said or did things they didn’t. .
“We need a mutual disarmament, non-proliferation treaty regarding the use of generative AI by political parties, as it mocks democratic elections,” Ahmed said.
But while some Democrats mock the RNC for using AI to imagine an apocalyptic world in which Biden is reelected, signs promise Democrats will not use this technology. there is no.
The breakneck pace of AI development has left its use largely unregulated, but campaigns that exploit the technology still need to circumvent some restrictions. Texas has enacted laws restricting the use of so-called deepfakes in the weeks leading up to the election.
Matthew Ferraro, a Washington-based cybersecurity attorney who has been tracking how legislators are trying to keep up with this burgeoning technology, said whether enforcement actions for these laws will be successful. But campaigns can avoid breaking the law in most cases by adding disclaimers to AI-generated content, he said.
The RNC ad, published last week, included a small on-screen disclaimer that read, “Built entirely with AI imagery.” But the label was faint, and some people CNN showed the video didn’t spot it on first viewing.
AI optimists would point to positive use cases for political campaigns. In the 2020 Indian elections, one candidate’s video of her message was translated into multiple languages and dialects to reach more voters.
AI is also being used in campaigns that sort through millions of data points to target voters more effectively.
“For the average donor, we know 500 to 1,000 different things about you,” said Martin Kurtz, CEO of Sterling Data Company, which runs the Democratic campaign. A lot is your political interests, your demographics, your income.”
Kurucz said imagine a large spreadsheet with millions of rows of voters and 1000 data points about each voter. “No human can synthesize” that information, he said, but AI can.
