Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has warned that artificial intelligence technologies could aid in manipulating elections and “tip” results in close races.
“Deepfakes and misinformation generated by AI could undermine elections and democracy … AI-generated deepfakes could be used to try to tilt an election,” Mr. Gates said in a July 11 blog post. “There are already phony videos that feature fabricated footage of well-known politicians. Imagine that on the morning of a major election, a video showing one of the candidates robbing a bank goes viral. It’s fake, but it takes news outlets and the campaign several hours to prove it.”
“How many people will see it and change their votes at the last minute? It could tip the scales, especially in a close election.”
The ability of AIs to generate realistic imagery is what makes it a perfect tool to spread misinformation online and sway public opinions. As AI lowers the difficulty of creating high-quality content, it could open up the pathway for large-scale microtargeting of specific populations to influence them in favor of a party or candidate.
In the 2024 presidential race, the use of fake AI imagery has already caused worries. Last month, a Twitter account called DeSantis War Room shared a video showing several images of Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci, three of which depicted Trump hugging and kissing Fauci on the face with the caption “REAL LIFE TRUMP,” suggesting a close relationship.
However, it later came to light that the images were fake and generated via AI. “Smearing Donald Trump with fake AI images is completely unacceptable. I’m not sharing them, but we’re in a new era. Be even more skeptical of what you see on the internet,” Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said in a June 8 tweet.
In April, a video of Hillary Clinton seemingly endorsing DeSantis for presidency spread online. The video was a deep fake.
Despite Mr. Gates’s concerns, his company Microsoft is a major player in the AI field. The firm has reportedly invested $13 billion into OpenAI, the company which developed the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. Microsoft has also integrated OpenAIs artificial intelligence processing code into its Bing search engine and other services.
