New Delhi: Tech Giant Microsoft has warned India that China is gearing up to disrupt the upcoming Lok Sabha Polls in India, US and South Korea which are scheduled to be held this year using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The warning comes after China conducted a trial run during Taiwan’s Presidential elections, employing AI to influence the outcome of the polls. Last month Microsoft’s Co-founder Bill Gates met and interacted with PM Modi in New Delhi and discussed the use of AI for social causes, women-led development and innovation in health and agriculture.
Across the world, at least 64 countries in addition to the European Union are expected to hold national elections. These countries account for the 49% of the global population. Microsoft’s threat intelligence team predicts that North Korea and state-sponsored cyber groups in China will target multiple elections that are slated for 2024. According to Microsoft, China is probably going to use social media to spread AI-generated content that will influence voters to support their interests during upcoming elections.
Microsoft in a statement has said that with major countries around the world going to the election this year, especially India, South Korea and the United States, they assume that China will at minimum create and amplify AI-generated content to benefit its interests.
Threat Of AI In Elections
In an important election year, the threat posed by political ads that use artificial intelligence (AI) to create misleading and fraudulent content—such as “deepfakes” or creating events that never happened—is noteworthy. These strategies seek to mislead voters about the positions that candidates have taken on a range of subjects, their remarks, and even the veracity of particular incidents. These deceptive tactics have the potential to impair voters’ capacity to make educated decisions if they are permitted to continue.
Microsoft issued a warning, stating that although China’s expanding experimentation with AI-generated content has not yet had much of an immediate impact, it may eventually become more effective. The internet giant pointed out that the last time China tried to sway Taiwan’s election, it used AI-generated misinformation. This was the first time a state-sponsored organization had used these kinds of strategies in a foreign election.
Storm 1376, also known as Spamouflage, was a Beijing-backed outfit that was quite active during the Taiwanese election, according to Microsoft. This organization disseminated memes and AI-generated information, such as phoney voice endorsements, to harm some politicians’ reputations and skew voters’ opinions. Iran also uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create TV news anchors.
According to Microsoft, Storm-1376 has spread several AI-generated memes featuring William Lai, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate from Taiwan at the time, as well as other Taiwanese officials and Chinese dissidents globally. One of them has been the growing usage of Storm-1376’s AI-generated TV news anchors, who have been in use since at least February 2023.
AI Influence In US Elections And Affairs
Microsoft noted that Chinese organizations are still using social media to spread misinformation about important voting demographics and to ask contentious questions as part of their influence activities in the US.
To influence and sow division in the US and elsewhere on a variety of topics, including the train derailment in Kentucky in November 2023, the Maui wildfires in August 2023, the disposal of Japanese nuclear wastewater, drug use in the US, immigration policies, and racial tensions in the nation, Microsoft has stated that there has been an increase in the use of Chinese AI-generated content in recent months. There isn’t much proof that these attempts have changed people’s opinions.
Election-related AI use is not new. An artificial intelligence (AI) phone call that sounded like President Joe Biden’s voice in the run-up to the 2024 New Hampshire Democratic primary advised voters not to participate in the polling.
It was incorrectly implied by the call that voters ought to reserve their votes for the general election in November. The typical voter might have been disenfranchised as a result of this message’s ability to mislead them into thinking that President Biden himself had approved of this command. The example in New Hampshire is only one of several when AI directly threatened democratic norms, even if there is no proof of Chinese involvement in it.
AI Influence In Indian Elections and The Raod Ahead
India’s general elections are slated to start on April 19 and end on June 4 with the announcement of the results. The election will take place in seven stages. The first will start on April 19 and run through May 1. The second will run through May 26, the third through May 7, the fourth through May 13, the fifth through May 20, the sixth through May 25, and the seventh phase will run through June 1.
The 17th Lok Sabha Assembly’s current term is scheduled to end on June 16. Guidelines and procedures for quickly recognizing and reacting to incorrect and misleading material have previously been made available by the Election Commission of India (ECI). The makers of ChatGPT, and OpenAI, met with ICI members last month and gave a presentation to the commission members detailing the steps being taken to stop the exploitation of AI in the upcoming elections.
