How Will AI Affect the 2024 Elections? with Renee DiResta and Carl Miller
Dec 21, 2023
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Renee DiResta and Carl Miller discuss the risks AI poses to elections. They explore deep fakes, combating hate speech and misinformation, accessing data for analysis, and the need for transparency from platforms. Implementing digital morality blockouts and circuit breakers is suggested to reduce negative engagement.
AI's impact on elections and democracies can be exacerbated by social media and generative AI dynamics.
Understanding covert influence operations is crucial in countering the manipulation of information and technology.
AI-powered fake friendships pose a threat to trust in elections, creating parallel epistemic worlds and perpetuating apathy and distrust.
Deep dives
The Impact of AI on Our Lives and Democracies
AI's impact on our lives and democracies, as exemplified by social media, is discussed. The podcast highlights the upcoming global experiment of generative AI in the 2024 elections, which could exacerbate the harms of social media. The experts emphasize the need to understand the changes in social media platforms, the proliferation of new entrants, increased polarization, and the layering of generative AI dynamics. They highlight the importance of countering sustained and covert influence operations by state bureaucracies, for-profit actors, and political campaigns. The potential risk of AI-generated deep fakes is mentioned, although it is recognized that influence primarily works through social connections and personal relationships.
Understanding the Mindset and Trade Craft of Influence Operations
The speaker delves into the mindset and trade craft behind influence operations and the manipulation of information. They highlight the shift in conceptualizing information as a theater of war and the deployment of cognitive psychology and behavioral science in campaigns. The discussion emphasizes the need to go beyond disinformation and focus on uncovering covert influence operations conducted by sophisticated actors, state bureaucracies, and private sector entities through various means and strategies. The significance of understanding the interdisciplinary elements informing the exploitation of technology and information maneuver is emphasized.
The Role of Social Connections and Fake Friendships
The podcast explores the potential danger of weaponizing relationships through the creation of fake friendships using AI. The experts highlight the power of personal connections in influencing people's beliefs and behaviors. They discuss the possibility of AI-powered friendships that could be used to subtly suggest ideas, manipulate issue salience, and shape individuals' perspectives over time. The potential for these fake friendships to erode trust in elections, create parallel epistemic worlds, and perpetuate a sense of apathy and distrust is emphasized.
The Evolving Threat Landscape and the Need for Response
The speaker discusses the new threats posed by AI and the need for comprehensive and proactive responses. They highlight the vulnerability of elections due to the gap between existing protections and the evolving sophistication of influence operations. The importance of access to data for researchers and the urgency in implementing regulatory actions is emphasized. The discussion also emphasizes exploring asymmetric, non-informational responses to deter bad actors, leveraging states, think tanks, and law enforcement agencies to levy costs and risks against those conducting influence operations.
Addressing the Crisis of Trust and Designing for Synthesis
The podcast concludes with a focus on addressing the crisis of trust and designing solutions that go beyond information-based approaches. The need for transparency, public education on recognizing propaganda techniques, and promoting counter-speakers who can provide accurate information in a timely manner is highlighted. The importance of understanding emotional resonance in content and incorporating non-informational responses such as sanctions, denial of tech access, and criminal laws against professional bad actors is emphasized.
2024 will be the biggest election year in world history. Forty countries will hold national elections, with over two billion voters heading to the polls. In this episode of Your Undivided Attention, two experts give us a situation report on how AI will increase the risks to our elections and our democracies.
Correction: Tristan says two billion people from 70 countries will be undergoing democratic elections in 2024. The number expands to 70 when non-national elections are factored in.
The Stanford Internet Observatory A cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies, with a focus on social media
