Hillary Clinton and U.S. election officials worry that artificial intelligence-generated disinformation might threaten the 2024 presidential election.
Clinton, a former secretary of state and past presidential nominee, expressed concern that foreign figures like Russian President Vladimir Putin might exploit AI to meddle in U.S. and global elections, reported the Wall Street Journal.
This year, numerous countries are holding elections across the globe.
“Anybody who’s not worried is not paying attention,” Clinton said this week at Columbia University, where election officials and tech executives spoke about how AI could impact global elections.
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She said, “It could only be a very small handful of people in St. Petersburg or Moldova or wherever they are right now who are lighting the fire, but because of the algorithms everyone gets burned,” The Wall Street Journal added.
Clinton asserted that Putin attempted to discredit her before the 2016 election by disseminating disinformation across platforms like Meta Platforms, Inc., Twitter, and Snap Inc., fabricating “all these terrible things” she allegedly did.
“I don’t think any of us understood it,” she said. “I did not understand it. I can tell you my campaign did not understand it. The so-called dark web was filled with these kinds of memes and stories and videos of all sorts portraying me in all kinds of less than flattering ways.”
Clinton added, “What they did to me was primitive and what we’re talking about now is the leap in technology.”
A bipartisan Senate report concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to aid Donald Trump. Despite denials from Russia, concerns persist.
In the upcoming 2024 election, officials are bracing for AI-generated disinformation. This includes misleading content about polling locations, voting procedures and ballot submission.
Election administrators warn that although disinformation has long been a concern, the utilization of AI could expedite its dissemination, exacerbating the issue.
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New Hampshire faced an early challenge in combating AI-generated disinformation in January. A robocall mimicking President Biden’s voice urged recipients not to vote on primary day, the report added. The state’s 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 prohibited the use of AI-generated voices in unsolicited robocalls, The Wall Street Journal added.
This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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