Robocalls of President Biden already confused primary voters in New Hampshire – but measures to curb the technology could be too little too late
The AI election is here.
Already this year, a robocall generated using artificial intelligence targeted New Hampshire voters in the January primary, purporting to be President Joe Biden and telling them to stay home in what officials said could be the first attempt at using AI to interfere with a US election. The “deepfake” calls were linked to two Texas companies, Life Corporation and Lingo Telecom.
It’s not clear if the deepfake calls actually prevented voters from turning out, but that doesn’t really matter, said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice-president of Public Citizen, a group that’s been pushing for federal and state regulation of AI’s use in politics.
I pretty much agree.
Their argument that AI will impinge on the election, relies on the assumptions that a) people are currently getting good quality information And b) have the skills to process it.
I think we’ ve seen more obviously than ever, that’s just not the case. AI might be a bit of icing on the pudding, but not much more than that.