The Year of AI and Elections

Why It Matters

Council on Foreign Relations

News

4.2 • 876 Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Billions of people will take to the polls next year, marking the world’s largest-ever electoral field. But this historic scale is not the only thing that will make 2024 unique. As new threats like deep fakes become cheaper and more widespread, these upcoming elections could serve as a test run for democracy in the artificial intelligence (AI) era. What risks does AI pose to elections next year? And will a surge in AI-powered disinformation change the nature of democratic elections? Featured Guests: Kat Duffy (Senior Fellow for Digital and Cyberspace Policy) Yoel Roth (Technology Policy Fellow, University of California, Berkeley) For an episode transcript and show notes, visit us at https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/year-ai-and-elections

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone.
0:01.2	It is our final episode of the season and we have absolutely loved having you all along for the ride.
0:08.2	The Why It Matters team wishes everyone a happy holidays and a happy new year and we look forward to seeing you back in the
0:14.6	spring for a whole new round of episodes. For now on with the show.
0:22.0	From shaping the future of search engines to driving the next era of warfare, AI is fueling a new industrial revolution.
0:31.0	You've got a fake image of the Pope, fake images of President Joe Biden.
0:36.7	At some point, if those proliferate at a much greater scale, won't that confuse people about what the truth is?
0:44.0	It's one of my areas of greatest concern.
0:46.5	The more general ability of these models to manipulate, to persuade, to provide sort of
0:51.3	one-on-one interactive disinformation.
0:54.0	Since it's
0:58.0	since it splashed into public view last year,
1:05.0	artificial intelligence has raised serious questions about the future,
1:10.0	the future of work, medicine,
1:12.0	and even the survival of the human race itself.
1:15.6	But as we look ahead to these long-term issues, AI is poised to play a significant role in something far more immediate, the global elections of 2024.
1:27.0	2024, which we are calling the year of elections, could mark AI's first tangible test with a powerful technological tool in the hands of
1:36.9	billions of individuals as well as foreign governments, all with powerful
1:41.7	incentives to deploy AI-powered disinformation for their own advantage.
1:47.0	More than half of the world's population across 78 countries will be eligible to take to the polls next year.
1:54.7	And while the elections won't all be equally free and fair, the leaders who emerge
1:59.7	from them will be making critical decisions about a series of
	...

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