Will deepfake AI content influence the 2024 election? from embedded images ao3 Watch Video

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✓ Published: 13-Mar-2024

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Nearly half of American voters believe AI-generated content will negatively impact the outcome of 2024 elections (43%), according to a recent poll.<br/><br/>The survey of 2,000 registered American voters revealed not only that people are increasingly pessimistic about a political digital-verse full of deepfakes, but also that people can’t distinguish between AI-generated content and human-created content. <br/><br/>As part of the study, respondents were asked to differentiate between AI-generated images and human-created images and the majority misidentified all AI images as human-created.<br/><br/>On average, only a third of respondents (33%) were able to correctly spot AI-generated images. <br/><br/>Comparisons between AI audio and a human voice were not more promising. When an audio clip with an AI voice was played, a fifth of respondents (20%) were unsure if it was human or AI, while 41% believed the AI voice was authentically human. <br/><br/>Commissioned by Yubico, in partnership with Defending Digital Campaigns, and conducted by OnePoll, the study found that politics is the number one media sector that has been negatively affected by deepfakes (AI-generated content intended to mislead), according to respondents. <br/><br/>Over three-fourths (78%) are worried about AI-generated content being used to impersonate political candidates and spread misinformation and 45% say they’re “very concerned” about this issue.<br/><br/>Almost half (49%) of respondents tend to question whether political videos, interviews, and ads online are real or are deepfake content.<br/><br/>And seven in ten (70%) are worried that authentic and truthful political information will be lost amongst misinformation online.<br/><br/>“In addition to the threat of AI and deep fakes spreading misinformation, 85% of respondents don’t have a high level of confidence that political campaigns effectively protect their personal information,” said David Treece, vice president of solutions architecture at Yubico. “This can have detrimental effects on a campaign, as a loss in trust for a campaign could mean voters avoid getting involved with the electoral process, from withholding donations, to even going as far as not voting for the candidate. It’s imperative that candidates take proper steps to protect their campaign and more importantly, to build trust with voters, by adopting modern cybersecurity practices like multi-factor authentication.” <br/><br/>Respondents said their top cybersecurity concerns during the 2024 election season were that a politician they support will be successfully hacked spreading false information and opinions (24%) and that political campaigns don’t take cybersecurity seriously enough in general (24%). <br/><br/>To remedy this, registered voters would like to see campaigns and candidates taking precautions to prevent their websites from being hacked (42%), using strong security measures like multi-factor authentication on their accounts (41%), and creating cybersecurity protocols and staff training (38%).