Hillary Clinton and US election officials fear that AI-generated disinformation could threaten the 2024 presidential election.
Clinton, a former secretary of state and former presidential candidate, expressed concern that foreign figures like the Russian president Vladimir Putin could harness artificial intelligence to meddle in U.S. and global elections, the Wall Street Journal reported.
This year, numerous countries are holding elections around the world.
“Anyone who isn’t worried isn’t paying attention,” Clinton said this week at Columbia University, where election officials and technology executives talked about how artificial intelligence could impact global elections.
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He said: “It may be just a small handful of people in St. Petersburg or Moldova or wherever they are right now who light the fire, but because of algorithms everyone gets burned,” the Wall Street Journal added.
Clinton said Putin attempted to discredit her before the 2016 election by spreading disinformation on platforms such as Meta Platforms, Inc.Twitter and Snap Inc.making up “all these terrible things” he would do.
“I don’t think any of us understood it,” he said. “I did not get it. I can tell you that my campaign didn’t get that. The so-called dark web was full of these types of memes, stories and videos of all kinds that portrayed me in all sorts of less than flattering ways.
Clinton added: “What they did to me was primitive and what we’re talking about now is the technological leap.”
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A bipartisan Senate report concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump. Despite Russia’s denials, concerns persist.
In the upcoming 2024 elections, officials are preparing for AI-generated misinformation. This includes misleading content about polling locations, voting procedures, and ballot mailing.
Election administrators warn that while misinformation has long been a concern, the use of artificial intelligence could accelerate its spread, exacerbating the problem.
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In January, New Hampshire faced one of its first challenges in combating AI-generated misinformation. A robocall that mimicked President Biden’s voice urged recipients not to vote on primary day, the report adds. The state attorney general’s office traced the call to a Texas-based company and issued a cease-and-desist order, invoking voter suppression laws.
Last month, the Federal Communications Commission banned the use of AI-generated voices in unsolicited robocalls, the Wall Street Journal added.
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This content was partially produced with the help of artificial intelligence tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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