Artificial intelligence in just the past few weeks and months has raised such concerns that even its own experts, by the hundreds, have been calling for a pause on the development of such software. Some view it as a threat to humanity’s future.
At the same time, America is approaching an election season following the 2020 and 2022 campaigns in which false information routinely was trumpeted as the truth – such as the Democrats’ claim that the incendiary details of Biden family scandals found in a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned was nothing but Russian disinformation. Or that there was substance to the Democrat-create “Russia collusion” claims against President Trump.
Putting those two trends together now, as the 2024 campaigns are approaching, should leave voters “scared s***less,” according to one expert.
A report from Fox News explained the comment was from Gary Marcus, professor emeritus of cognitive science at New York University.
A recognized expert on AI, he recently told Fortune that advanced artificial intelligence platforms could pose a danger to election security as soon as the next election.
Some experts in the field suggest those software programs could become a major source of misinformation.
Cited as a recent example was an image, posted by an account named Chicago Lakefront News, of Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas. Included was a faked recording where he appeared to downplay the problem of police shootings.
According to Fox, “The tweet was seen by thousands of people, despite it quickly being debunked as a fake recording that was generated by an artificial intelligence platform designed to closely mimic voices. Vallas would eventually lose in a close runoff two months later in April, though the fake recording was not seen as a deciding factor in the race. Nevertheless, Marcus said he believes the technology will play a major role in future elections.”
Marcus’ comment to Fortune was that it was hard to see “how AI-generated misinformation will not become a major force.”
Marcus warned that the technology could be used by adversaries such as Russia, to target American voters with a flood of misinformation.
However, Chris Meserole, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in AI, said the fears didn’t have a lot of foundation.
He said the tech is not yet advanced enough to make a significant impact.
via wnd
