Following an incident of President Biden's voice being replicated in AI-generated robocalls, concerns arise over how artificial intelligence could impact future elections in the United States.
Schick says AI is "the latest thing" to pose a risk "in an increasingly corroded information ecosystem." She notes the spread of disinformation and misinformation predated AI, but the ability of AI to clone human biometrics "has become far more accessible."
In this era of "exponential technology," Schick says we've seen economic shifts and changes in the balance of power. However, she thinks the growing concerns of AI misusage indicate a "declining trust in the process" around voting and political races.
"When people start to understand that anything can be synthetic, anything can be AI-generated, anything can be faked, they begin to lose trust in everything," Schick tells Yahoo Finance, adding: "And I think that is one of the core challenges we're facing."
Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith
Video Transcript
SEANA SMITH: As the 2024 election ramps up, there was a robo call that sounded like President Biden, and urged people not to vote in the New Hampshire primary. And that's fueling calls for regulation. Now, the source of the call remaining unknown. We want to bring in Nina Schick, author and advisor specializing in generative AI.
Nina, it's great to have you here. And going off of what Rick was just saying, the threat that AI potentially poses here to the 2024 election. How big of a risk do you think this is? Put in perspective for our viewers.
NINA SCHICK: Yeah. Great to be joining you today. I think that AI is just the latest thing that poses a challenge in an increasingly corroded information ecosystem. Long before AI was even in the game, we saw how mis and disinformation can spread like wildfire online. And that includes not even very sophisticated content, just a crudely edited video, a video that's been slowed down, or even an authentic video that's simply been miscontextualized.
But, of course, what is now different from 2016 or 2020 is that the so-called capabilities of generative AI, which include the ability to use artificial intelligence to generate synthetic video that can perfectly clone human biometrics has become far more accessible. So yes, Joe Biden can be cloned. President Trump can be cloned. We've already been seeing a lot of these synthetic videos in the political sphere.
But more than that, I think this is the core question or the core challenge. When people start to understand that anything can be synthetic, anything can be AI generated, anything can be faked, they begin to lose trust in everything. So you lose trust in the electoral process. You lose trust in the result. You become completely cynical. And I think that is one of the core challenges we're facing, not only in the internet age, but even augmented with the AI age now.
BRAD SMITH: And Nina, this year, we spoke to a lot of business leaders at Davos about the future of AI. I want to play this quick clip for you. Here's what they had to say.
BILL GATES: AI can be used for all-- it can be used for cyber attacks. It can be used to design a bioterrorism weapon. Whenever we have new technologies, they're used to achieve positive goals and for some challenging things as well.
CRISTIANO AMON: We have spent a lot of time creating this computing engines that you can run AI on the devices that are battery powered at the edge. Phone, PC, the AI PC, and cars.
MATHEW PRINCE: If I had to predict, I would say 2024 is going to be the year of the AI let down.
BRAD SMITH: So in an election year, we're already anticipating it's going to be extremely vitriolic, divisive. How can we ensure that, at least, here in the US, especially, when we, globally, this is going to be a record election year with some of the campaigning and elections and polls that are going to be open elsewhere around the world, how can we here ensure that we're ahead of some of the largest risks as the erosion of trust that you just mentioned is certainly on one of the dockets for that largest risk too?
NINA SCHICK: Yeah. You're absolutely right. Huge year globally. I think it's something like 40% of the population goes to the poll, not least in the United States as well. Look, I'm not too optimistic about the short-term outlook, at least, politically, not only in the United States, but in many other parts of the world. I think that divisiveness, the polarization is certainly going to continue to be a core feature of whoever wins the election in the United States.
Nonetheless, I think that is indicative of something broader afoot. And I think that's largely to do with, again, we've seen how in this era of exponential technology, economies are changing, the balance of power is shifting, I think the United States, interestingly, has a lot of economic power and stands to really capitalize on exponential technologies, including artificial intelligence. However, am I optimistic that the political debate in the United States and other countries is going to be less divisive? No. But, again, I think this is indicative of our traditional systems of government and our public institutions no longer being able to stand up to the challenges of an exponential age. And, therefore, there's this declining trust in the process.
BRAD SMITH: Nina Schick, author, speaker specializing in generative AI. Nina, always a pleasure to get some of your insights here. We're going to hope for the best here on the generative AI front, at least, in this election and future ones as well. We appreciate the time.