Tests find AI tools readily create election lies from the voices of well-known political leaders
A recent study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate reveals the alarming ease with which AI voice-cloning tools can be used to reliably create false election-related statements in the voices of well-known leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, shown speaking in Germany in May.
Associated Press Photo
The Associated Press
As high-stakes elections approach in the U.S. and European Union, publicly available artificial intelligence tools can be easily weaponized to churn out convincing election lies in the voices of leading political figures, a digital civil rights group said Friday.
Researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate tested six of the most popular AI voice-cloning tools to see if they would generate audio clips of five false statements about elections in the voices of eight prominent American and European politicians.
In a total of 240 tests, the tools generated convincing voice clones in 193 cases, or 80% of the time, the group found. In one clip, a fake U.S. President Joe Biden says election officials count each of his votes twice. In another, a fake French President Emmanuel Macron warns citizens not to vote because of bomb threats at the polls.
The findings reveal a remarkable gap in safeguards against the use of AI-generated audio to mislead voters, a threat that increasingly worries experts as the technology has become both advanced and accessible. While some of the tools have rules or tech barriers in place to stop election disinformation from being generated, the researchers found many of those obstacles were easy to circumvent with quick workarounds.
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