The AI-generated hell of the 2024 election – The Verge

Perplexity debuts an AI-powered election information hub

2024-11-03T19:36:12-05:00

AI search company Perplexity is putting to the test whether it's a good idea to use AI to serve crucial voting information with a new Election Information Hub it announced on Friday. The hub offers things like AI-generated answers to voting questions and summaries of candidates, and on November 5th, Election Day, the company says it will track vote counts live, using data from The Associated Press.

Perplexity says its voter information, which includes polling requirements, locations, and times, is based on data from Democracy Works. (The same group powers similar features from Google). And that its election-related answers come from "a cura …

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Russia reportedly paid a former Florida cop to pump out anti-Harris deepfakes and disinformation

2024-10-24T16:01:44-04:00

A former Florida sheriff who moved to Russia amid an FBI investigation is a Kremlin-backed propagandist responsible for viral deepfake videos and misinformation targeting Kamala Harris's campaign, according to European intelligence documents reviewed by the Washington Post.

The GRU, Russia's military intelligence service, gave funding to John Mark Dougan, the operator of several fake news websites. According to documents reviewed by the Post, Dugan was responsible for several websites that seemingly published fake local news, including DC Weekly, Chicago Chronicle, and Atlanta Observer. The documents, which mostly focus on the time between …

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Taylor Swift endorses Kamala Harris in response to fake AI Trump endorsement

2024-09-10T23:40:43-04:00

Taylor Swift said on Tuesday that she plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November's presidential election - and that AI-generated images circulating of herself pushed her in part to make her support public.

"Recently I was made aware that AI of 'me' falsely endorsing Donald Trump's presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation," Swift wrote in an Instagram post. "It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth."

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Telecom will pay $1 million over deepfake Joe Biden robocall

2024-08-21T15:27:03-04:00

A telecom company that transmitted the deepfake robocall of President Joe Biden's voice has agreed to pay $1 million to resolve an enforcement action from the Federal Communications Commission, the agency announced.

Lingo Telecom relayed a fake Biden message to New Hampshire voters in January, urging them not to turn out for the Democratic primary. The FCC identified political consultant Steve Kramer as the person behind the generative AI calls and previously proposed Kramer pay a separate $6 million fine.

Under the new settlement with Lingo, the FCC said the company will need to strictly adhere to its caller ID authentication rules, inclu …

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X’s new AI image generator will make anything from Taylor Swift in lingerie to Kamala Harris with a gun

2024-08-14T12:18:02-04:00

The Walt Disney Corporation is probably not a fan. | Image: Tom Warren / Grok

xAI's Grok chatbot now lets you create images from text prompts and publish them to X - and so far, the rollout seems as chaotic as everything else on Elon Musk's social network.

Subscribers to X Premium, which grants access to Grok, have been posting everything from Barack Obama doing cocaine to Donald Trump with a pregnant woman who (vaguely) resembles Kamala Harris to Trump and Harris pointing guns. With US elections approaching and X already under scrutiny from regulators in Europe, it's a recipe for a new fight over the risks of generative AI.

Grok will tell you it has guardrails if you ask it something like "what are your limitations …

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Microsoft wants Congress to outlaw AI-generated deepfake fraud

2024-07-30T06:41:02-04:00

Microsoft is calling on members of Congress to regulate the use of AI-generated deepfakes to protect against fraud, abuse, and manipulation. Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith is calling for urgent action from policymakers to protect elections and guard seniors from fraud and children from abuse.

"While the tech sector and non-profit groups have taken recent steps to address this problem, it has become apparent that our laws will also need to evolve to combat deepfake fraud," says Smith in a blog post. "One of the most important things the U.S. can do is pass a comprehensive deepfake fraud statute to prevent cybercriminals from u …

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The UK politician accused of being AI is actually a real person

2024-07-09T16:45:15-04:00

Mark Matlock, a political candidate for the right-wing Reform UK party, clarified in The Independent that he is a real person, not an AI bot, as some suspected.

Perhaps it was the glossy, hyper-smooth skin in a campaign image or the fact that Matlock had apparently missed events like the election count - but earlier this week, a thread on X questioned whether Matlock existed at all. "We might be on the verge of a HUGE SCANDAL," the post read.

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An AI-generated political candidate isn't totally out of the realm of possibility: during this election, an executive at an AI company used an AI persona to run for Parliament in the UK. He l …

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Google will now generate disclosures for political ads that use AI

2024-07-03T14:00:17-04:00

Google is making it easier for advertisers to disclose whether political ads contain AI-generated content. In an update spotted by Search Engine Land, Google says it will automatically generate disclosures whenever advertisers label election ads as containing "synthetic or digitally altered content."

Last year, Google started requiring political advertisers to insert their own "clear and conspicuous" disclosures on ads containing AI content. But now, Google is simplifying the process, as it will automatically include an in-ad disclosure whenever advertisers select an "altered or synthetic content" checkbox in their campaign settings.

The d …

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Political consultant behind the Joe Biden deepfake robocalls faces $6 million fine

2024-05-23T14:29:53-04:00

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed imposing multimillion-dollar fines on the political consultant responsible for the robocall campaign that used an AI-generated deepfake of President Joe Biden's voice - and on the telecom company that facilitated the calls.

Longtime Democratic operator Steve Kramer faces a $6 million fine from the FCC, while Lingo Telecom could be fined $2 million. The FCC announced the proposed penalties on Thursday, calling the Lingo fine a "first-of-its-kind enforcement action."

"We will act swiftly and decisively to ensure that bad actors cannot use U.S. telecommunications networks to facilitate the m …

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Political ads could require AI-generated content disclosures soon

2024-05-22T15:41:20-04:00

The chair of the Federal Communications Commission introduced a proposal Wednesday that could require political advertisers to disclose when they use AI-generated content on radio and TV ads.

If the proposal is implemented, the FCC will seek comment on whether to require on-air and written disclosure of AI-generated content in political ads and will propose to apply these disclosure requirements to certain mediums. In a press release, the FCC notes that the disclosure requirements wouldn't prohibit such content but would instead require political advertisers to be transparent about their use of AI.

"As artificial intelligence tools become …

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