Donald Trump is back in the picture, and that should scare everyone — at least everyone who cares about living in a free democracy. The possible resurgence of the former US president who faces 91 criminal charges is a symptom of a civic landscape that is fractured and an information ecosystem that is broken.
This year, several major democracies will hold elections, including the US, the UK and India. And while Australia is not likely to have a federal election until 2025, the results of the global elections will have a wide impact.
It is harder than ever for populations to come together, with social media continuing to facilitate disinformation, laws that guard our privacy and rights online being outdated, and artificial intelligence (AI) set to turbocharge digital harms and amplify misleading and fake content.
Through AI, the public will have to contend with a tsunami of cheap propaganda that could overwhelm credible information. There are no hard rules against deepfakes — a form of AI called deep learning to make images or videos of fake events — and digital platforms have deprioritised ethics and election integrity teams.
OpenAI recently announced it will not allow political candidates and their campaigns to use ChatGPT in the US elections, but that won’t stop propaganda from being rife while the general public has access. Other digital platforms have struggled with moderation in the past, and OpenAI will be no different.
A World Economic Forum survey named AI-generated misinformation and disinformation as one of the top global risks for 2024 — ahead of cost-of-living pressures, the economy and civil unrest. Despite this, the Australian government’s initial response into “safe and responsible AI” is worryingly vague.
At the heart of the response is a “risk-based approach”. This is a sensible way of trying to account for the wide spectrum of impacts AI will encompass. However, the details of these risks are still to be developed by an advisory group later this year. Misinformation and disinformation are mentioned in the context of the work being developed under Communications Minister Michelle Rowland. There is also mention of risks that AI could contribute to the “undermining of social cohesion”.
One of the more concrete examples provided is a watermark system that labels AI-generated content. This is intended to help the public distinguish between human- and AI-generated materials. There are inherent complications with this. The widespread adoption of AI, which the response encourages, will mean that more people will use AI as part of their regular content generation and consumption, including for professional purposes — so what then will the label communicate? Will it imply that the AI content is less credible? If AI use is sanctioned in newsrooms, for example, will this not render the label obsolete if everyone starts to use AI for news content?
This approach once again puts the work of navigating misinformation and disinformation into the hands of individuals who are burdened with sifting through what is credible and what isn’t, while digital platforms remain largely unscrutinised over the quality and veracity of their labelling efforts.
This is just one example of the complexity of the work ahead, and why the government’s initial response feels lacking in urgency and effort. AI’s ability to produce a storm of false information, facilitated through unscrupulous digital platforms that have still not been able to resolve these issues from years past, will result in an AI-powered election disinformation war.
An AI turbo-charged election disinformation war should worry all areas of government, whether they’ve been given an AI remit or not. Certainly the ministries responsible for AI regulation need to take it seriously given this issue could directly affect their reelection chances.
Is AI doing more harm than good? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
