The Threat Of Deepfakes In The 2024 Election

Diane Rehm: On My Mind

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🗓️ 1 February 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over the last year, a leap in technology has put powerful generative AI tools in the hands of practically anyone with a computer. This means creating fake audio, images, and video has never been easier.

“That’s a democratization of a technology that should terrify us,” says Hany Farid, professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. “Because now I can make the president of the United States, or a candidate for the highest office in the United States, say anything I want them to say.”

Farid is an expert in artificial intelligence and disinformation who is tracking the use of AI in the 2024 election. He worries that widespread access to these powerful new technologies will exacerbate pre-existing challenges to our democracy, particularly a shared understanding of truth itself. “I think it’s like throwing jet fuel onto a dumpster fire,” Farid tells Diane in the latest episode of On My Mind.

Visit Hany Farid’s website to see how AI has been used in the 2024 election:

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi it's Diane Reim Book Club.
0:05.0	Hi it's Diane on my mind.
0:08.0	Welcome all of you to the second half of the October Diane Reim Book Club.
0:14.0	No, it isn't my October Book Club, and that was not my voice.
0:21.0	It was a deep fake audio clip made by my guest today, Honey the Reed.
0:28.4	The Reed took a two minute recording at me, vetted into an AI audio generator, and now he can essentially
0:38.8	make my clone say whatever he wanted to.
0:43.0	And that's a democratization of a technology that should terrify us
0:47.0	because now I can make the President of the United States or a candidate
0:50.0	for the California, Berkeley. He is currently tracking how AI is being used in the 2024 election.
1:10.4	He says he is worried and we should be too.
1:16.3	Honey, it's been said that 2024 is the deep fake election and this year we can really see how AI is getting into things already.
1:32.0	There was a fake. getting into things already.
1:32.8	There was a fake Biden telling New Hampshire voters not to vote.
1:40.5	How seriously are you worrying about what's happening in 2024 elections?
1:48.8	I'm pretty worried and this is by the way not a uniquely US thing.
1:52.4	Some 2 billion people worldwide will be voting This is, by the way, not a uniquely US thing.
1:52.6	Some 2 billion people worldwide will be voting this year in some 70 elections.
1:57.4	And we have already seen interference outside the US.
2:00.0	We've seen it in Slovakia.
2:01.2	We're seeing it in Bangladesh.
2:02.4	We're seeing it in India. We've seen it in Brazil. we're seeing it in India, we've seen it in Brazil, we're seeing it in Mexico,
	...

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