New effort to 'inoculate' U.S. voters against AI misinformation
An ad from The Future US shows a woman in Arizona picking up the phone on Election Day, and hearing a voice on the other end that tells her to stay away from the polls because of threats from militant groups. The AI-generated caller, impersonating a poll worker, holds a ‘real’ conversation with the voter.
Axios
A bipartisan coalition with support from Hollywood power players and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Archewell Foundation is working to prepare U.S. voters for a possible deepfake onslaught as the campaign year goes into high gear.
Why it matters: With federal agencies and social media companies barely talking to each other about AI-driven misinformation threats, "this is a disaster waiting to happen — no one's doing the public inoculation," warned Miles Taylor, chief policy officer of The Future US, which is coordinating the campaign.
Taylor is a former DHS chief of staff — and author of a celebrated op-ed critique of the Trump administration from an "anonymous" insider — who wrote a tell-all book.
The big picture: Last September, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the White House, FBI and other federal officials likely violated the First Amendment by encouraging social media companies to crack down on COVID-19 misinformation.
The Supreme Court, which is hearing a government appeal of that ruling, is skeptical that officials overstepped — but the case has already significantly reduced the contact between officials and big tech companies, including election-protection coordination.
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