AI Eats World

 Two articles this week raise fears about AI and politics - one from ZD Net and the other from The Bulwark.

Jonathan V. Last's Software Is Eating Democracy: We have to get smart about the risks of even "good" AI published by Bulwark.

The second risk is more specific and Galloway talks about it at some length with Tim: In Q1 and Q2 of 2024, we are likely to see massive efforts from the Russians and Chinese to leverage AI into helping Donald Trump become president again.

It is not clear to me that either the media or the American citizenry is prepared to deal with the impact of AI on a presidential election.

Meanwhile, ZDNet published How AI will fool voters in 2024 if we don't do something now, an interview:

ZDNET: In what ways can generative AI be leveraged to influence voters or election outcomes, and what are the potential risks associated with its use in this context?

Robert Crossler: Generative AI can be leveraged to further polarize voters. If there is an issue that one party wants to convince another person of, then generative AI can be used to create a narrative that supports this argument. The potential risk is that voters will believe something that is not true, but feel strongly that it is true because they have seen very realistic material that supports the viewpoint that they were led to believe.

We need to decide where to go forward with AI, even if we should go forward, rather than let the engineers and tech billionaires lost in the geeking put us in a place of danger.

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