Since the 2016 election, Russia as well as other foreign powers have used social media and the internet in order to influence our general elections. With the advent of AI, it has given Russia and other foreign powers a new tool in order to attack our democracy.
With the ongoing war in Ukraine becoming a critical issue in the upcoming 2024 election, and in general the international influence of America, it has once more led Russia to take a keen interest in our upcoming elections. In order to get the desired result, Russia has taken to employing the use of AI in order to influence our elections. In an interview with PBS NewsHour, Investigative Journalist and expert on Russian intelligence operations Christo Grozev would raise awareness towards the issue, stating, "they [Russia] specifically talk about using A.I. to customize the message based on the biases and preferences of each individual user...with A.I., you can do that to tens of million of people." Unlike the misinformation in the 2016 election, this current new wave specifically targets individuals and their preferences, making it even more difficult to discern misinformation for the average US voter.
Just as in 2016, Russia's use of AI is for the purpose "to boost the former president's candidacy and denigrate the Vice President and the Democratic Party, including through conspiratorial Americans," as one Office of the Director of National Intelligence official would state. Russia has gone about this purpose by exploiting divisive issues in order to sow disagreement and distrust within the United States. By altering pieces of real media, such as a Kamala Harris' speeches, it leads to the spread of misinformation, creating the distrust they desire. One example of this occurring has been the Kremlin's alteration of a video, making it seem as if Harris executed a hit and run on an 13 year old, obviously lowering people's opinions of Harris.
As an American citizen, I can't help but be concerned, especially since there is evidence of other countries such as Iran and China also using AI to meddle within our election. As we continue to get our information from the unmoderated internet, it creates an ever increasing risk of consuming misinformation. As a democracy, we depend on accurate information for our citizens to make an informed decision. With foreign countries influencing the facts, it threatens our entire democratic system.
The question now is how we should go about countering this issue. According to Julia Feerrar, digital literacy educator from Virginia Tech "One of the most powerful things you can do to identify misinformation, whether AI-generated or not, is to look at where it's coming from. Is it from a reputable, professional news organization or from a website or account you don’t recognize?" By examining the credibility of a source, it can help a reader quickly discern what is true or not. If a piece of news, for example a "Harris" speech that portrays her in a negative way is being posted by a random account that was made a couple of days or weeks ago, it is pretty likely that the post was made by a Russian operative that had used AI to alter the video. Through practicing responsible digital literacy, we can help safe guard our democracy from foreign threats such as Russia.
Sources:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-iran-ai-influence-us-election-dni/story?id=113941680
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-russia-is-using-artificial-intelligence-to-interfere-in-elections
https://news.vt.edu/articles/2024/02/AI-generated-fake-news-experts.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/09/23/russia-harris-attack-ads/75353125007/
4 comments:
The issue of perhaps regulating news and the flow of information is pretty hard. For one, the internet is pretty democratic -- people can post (mostly) whatever they want on whatever platform they choose. However, with the widespread nature of the internet comes doubt and unknowability; you may think you are talking to someone from Europe or Canada or Malaysia, but there's no real way to "know" if the person you're engaging with is truly who they present themselves to be. Furthermore, as social media accounts are super easy to make, it's super duper easy to make a few accounts and have them "follow" and support each other.
And although we can and should look out for where information is coming from, the bottom line and what we should all be doing is to treat every day like April Fools; to distrust everything in the same way that friends distrust friends on April Fools.
Also Russia is probably not the only person with a stake that is meddling in the US elections, they're most likely just the most well-known. There are most likely other countries (that are probably less democratic than us and have a lot of money to spend) or organizations who will be trying to sway public opinion in favor of one candidate or another.
I agree with what you've said regarding being on the lookout for sources. As for your second part, I did mention China and Iran as two other nations that have been doing the same thing as the Russians. Iran in particular has been doing shady things such as hacking the trump campaign, so clearly the other nations meddling in our elections has become a more prevalent issue.
Alex, I strongly agree with your opinions in this comment, specifically on your point regarding how we have to be on the lookout for the validity of sources. I also find your point about how other countries meddling in the election is overlooked, because we often forget that other countries also have similar technology and capabilities as Russia, and we should not count them out as well.
I think that moving forward one of our main subjects to teach kids and adults in school is going to be media literacy. There are so many ways to fake things nowadays and there is no way to hide from the impact that AI will have on our society. The current regulatory rules in place are way too vague and misleading to consumers, with poor enforcement causing a severe lack of progress. We have to take initiative ourselves to stop spreading misinformation as we discussed in our socratics and our first big unit of the year.
Republicans, or leaning Republicans in the US tend to believe that Russia is giving too much support to the Ukraine, which may be why Russia media is trying to endorse Trump through it’s foreign influence through online companies behind the scenes using AI. They paint Harris as admitting she’s a DEI candidate who doesn’t actually have qualififcations getting others to question her intelligence and assume that she slept her way to the top. By painting the democratic party in this negative light, they want to repaint the Russian image of the United States citizens and redirect the US’s plan for support for Ukraine away (one of the promises of the republican candidate) so they can annex and take over them.
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