AI-Enabled Influence Operations: Safeguarding Future Elections

Information & Surveillance & Public Life
Written By Rahim Thawer

By Centre for Emerging Technology and Security (Alan Turing Institute).

Summary: Analyzes how AI-enabled influence operations and political microtargeting threaten election integrity and proposes safeguards for democratic processes.

Relevance: Fits Surveillance & Civic Life: analyzes how AI-generated deepfakes and microtargeted political content shaped 2024 election discourse, relevant to social workers doing civic-engagement or community organizing work with politically vulnerable populations.

Key findings: CETAS found no conclusive evidence that AI-enabled disinformation changed the 2024 US presidential election’s result, but documented 24 deepfake smear campaigns and 14 instances of bot-driven voter targeting that reinforced pre-existing ideological beliefs rather than converting undecided voters. Recommended UK safeguards include digital provenance requirements, an Ofcom Advisory Committee on Disinformation, and a Canadian-style Critical Election Incident Public Protocol.

Read the original: https://cetas.turing.ac.uk/publications/ai-enabled-influence-operations-safeguarding-future-elections

Rahim Thawer
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