Delving into deceitful media manipulations and advanced artificial forgeries
In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being employed in elections worldwide, with a focus on disinformation and negative campaigning. However, there is a growing recognition of the potential for AI to be used in a more constructive and positive manner, particularly in enhancing voter engagement, policy development, and election integrity.
A notable example of this positive shift can be seen in New Jersey's AI Task Force. This initiative, which serves as a global model, uses AI to facilitate large-scale community engagement and evidence-based policymaking. By prioritising election-related policy problems and synthesising research, the task force has spearheaded initiatives such as AI skills training for public servants and an AI labor market monitoring system to help workers, indirectly impacting democratic participation and workforce issues around elections.
In Indonesia, while much discussion revolves around AI-driven disinformation, public concern about AI-generated content influencing political views is substantial. This opens up opportunities for AI use in election-related information literacy, monitoring voter sentiment, or transparency-enhancing tools. However, specific case studies beyond disinformation are currently not detailed.
Unfortunately, discussions around AI in elections often focus on the negative aspects, such as the automation of disinformation campaigns or deepfakes, rather than constructive, non-disinformation applications.
Recognising this knowledge gap, potential areas for AI use in elections beyond disinformation have been inferred from global trends and the New Jersey example. These include enhancing voter education and engagement through AI-driven platforms, facilitating policy development and public consultation using AI tools, monitoring labor market trends to understand electoral impacts on employment, election logistics and planning optimisations via AI analytics, and detecting electoral anomalies and ensuring election integrity.
However, specific documented cases for Bangladesh, Pakistan, Portugal, South Africa, Indonesia, and Taiwan will require more targeted research beyond the current search data.
Our recent study examined the use of AI across a small number of elections during the first six months of 2024, including the legislative elections in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Portugal, and South Africa, and both the legislative and presidential elections in Indonesia and Taiwan. The study revealed examples of AI-enhanced disinformation, such as deepfakes designed to undermine specific candidates, AI-powered disinformation discrediting specific politicians, misleading content on specific politicians, deepfakes of celebrities endorsing or criticising political candidates, attempts at voter suppression, and generalised disinformation.
In conclusion, while AI poses significant challenges in the realm of elections, particularly in terms of disinformation, there is a growing recognition of its potential for positive and constructive use. By focusing on areas such as voter education, policy development, and election integrity, AI can play a crucial role in enhancing democratic processes worldwide. Further research is needed to document and understand these positive applications, particularly in the context of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Portugal, South Africa, Indonesia, and Taiwan.
- The AI Task Force in New Jersey is a globally recognized initiative using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to boost voter engagement and foster evidence-based policymaking.
- In Indonesia, there's a substantial concern about AI-generated content influencing political views, opening up possibilities for its use in election-related information literacy and transparency-enhancing tools.
- While AI-enhanced disinformation was observed in various elections, such as deepfakes designed to manipulate candidates, further research is required to uncover and understand the positive applications of AI in areas like voter education, policy development, and election integrity, particularly in countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Portugal, South Africa, Indonesia, and Taiwan.
