AI threat to democracy
How to Safeguard U.S. Elections From AI-Powered Misinformation and Cyberattacks
Jen Easterly, Scott Schwab, and Cait Conley -- Foreign Affairs
Jan. 3, 2023
Generative artificial intelligence -- AI that can create new text, images, and other media out of existing data -- is one of the most disruptive technologies in centuries.
With this technology now more available and powerful than ever, its malicious use is poised to test the security of the United States’ electoral process by giving nefarious actors intent on undermining American democracy -- including China, Iran, and Russia -- the ability to supercharge their tactics.
Specifically, generative AI will amplify cybersecurity risks and make it easier, faster, and cheaper to flood the country with fake content.
Although the technology won’t introduce fundamentally new risks in the 2024 election -- bad actors have used cyber threats and disinformation for years to try to undermine the American electoral process -- it will intensify existing risks. Generative AI in the hands of adversaries could threaten each part of the electoral process, including the registration of voters, the casting of votes, and the reporting of results.
In large part, responsibility for meeting this threat will fall to the country’s state and local election officials. For nearly 250 years, these officials have protected the electoral process from foreign adversaries, wars, natural disasters, pandemics, and disruptive technologies.
But these officials need support, especially because of the intense pressure they have faced since the 2020 election and the baseless allegations of voter fraud that followed it. Federal agencies, manufacturers of voting equipment, generative AI companies, the media, and voters need to do their part by giving these officials the resources, capabilities, information, and trust they need to bolster the security of election infrastructure. Election officials also need to be allowed to safely perform their duties, from the opening of voting through to final vote verification.
Generative AI companies in particular can help by developing and making available tools for identifying AI-generated content, and by ensuring that their capabilities are designed, developed, and deployed with security as the top priority to prevent them from being misused by nefarious actors. At stake is nothing less than the foundation of American democracy.
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