In Arizona, election workers trained with deepfakes to prepare for 2024
An AI video was made to promote an election security exercise. Its depiction of Adrian Fontes, like the fake Fontes video described in the article, is fake. Video by Toshi Hoo, Institute for the Future
The Washington Post
The video message from Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes warmly greeted the scores of election workers who had gathered at a Phoenix-area hotel in December for a first-of-its-kind drill: “We are very excited that all of you are here,” Fontes, a Democrat, began. “You are on the front lines, and this exercise is a prime opportunity for you to hone your skills by experiencing new challenges as a team.” He wished them luck.
Over two days, the election workers from around the state maneuvered through a training exercise involving the kinds of attacks generated by artificial intelligence that they might face in this politically competitive state during the coming election cycle. They tackled situations that plunged them into AI-generated scenarios ranging from law enforcement operations to attempts to infiltrate technology systems.
It was not until the end that the real Adrian Fontes told the shocked group that the person in the welcome video was a fake, an AI creation built out of publicly available images.
RELATED STORIES FROM THE INTEGRITY PROJECT
