How AI and deep fake videos could change elections

Australian Community Media

'Deepfake' AI videos are very deceptive forms of videomaking, and we’ve already begun to see how these videos can be used to undermine elections by claiming a candidate has done or said something that never happened.

Transcript

00:00The spread of misinformation through deepfake videos has the potential to undermine the democratic process,

00:05especially during elections. A deepfake is a digital image, video, or sound file of a real

00:11person that has been edited to make a realistic but false depiction.

00:16Open up the door there's a bomb in there.

00:18These videos may appear real but have been generated using readily available artificial intelligence.

00:24This was this was very truly surprising for me.

00:27Gone are the days when political parodies were easy to spot as

00:30fake forms of fun to poke at our elected leaders.

00:33If you are seeing me now it means that I don't like it.

00:37I believe that diplomacy should be the cornerstone of any foreign policy.

00:43And I can see Russia from my house.

00:46It's a very deceptive form of video making and we've already begun to see how these videos

00:51can be used to undermine elections by claiming a candidate has done or said something that never

00:58really happened. A prime example of this came during the US election when tech billionaire Elon

01:04Musk shared a video of democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris that looked like an

01:09official campaign ad. I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire. I'm both a woman

01:15and a person of color so if you criticize anything I say you're both sexist and racist.

01:22And just remember when voting this November it is important to see what can be

01:27unburdened by what has been and by what has been I mean Joe Biden.

01:33According to social media metrics at the time the false campaign ad received nearly 140 million

01:41views and it looks pretty close to real. Definitely sounds very real but it was entirely

01:47artificially generated and Kamala Harris never said those things. There was also images circulating

01:54appearing to show the former vice president wearing a survey uniform. It's something we've

02:00been seeing creeping into Australian politics too. During the Queensland state election in 2024 the

02:07Liberal National Party splashed their social media accounts with a video of then premier Stephen

02:12Miles. He was shared with the caption POV my rent is up $60 a week my power bill is up 20%

02:20but the premier made a sandwich on TikTok. Now there's some obvious anomalies in this video

02:27that clearly show it's a fake and it was also posted with a label indicating that it had been

02:31artificially generated. In another example that came around the same time though the Australian

02:37Labor Party posted a video showing opposition leader Peter Dutton apparently dancing with the

02:43caption dance if you want to see nuclear power plants built in everyone's backyard. It's not

02:49incredibly realistic and so it's clear again that this video is also a fake but artificial

02:55intelligence and deepfake videography remain in their infancy and the quality of such imagery is

03:01only going to improve in time. Right now there are no specific laws in Australia that prohibit

03:07the use of artificial intelligence in the production of election campaign materials.

03:11The Electoral Act does make it an offence to deliberately mislead or deceive voters but this

03:17technology is still too new to be completely regulated especially when third parties are

03:22generating or sharing this kind of content. The fear is as technology becomes more adept it will

03:28become a lot easier to mimic public figures and a lot harder to determine what is real and what

03:34is fake. The kinds of programs that make these videos are easily accessible. Truly anyone with

03:40a phone or a computer and an internet access can quickly produce a deepfake image or video

03:47and these videos can have very real consequences. So when something pops up on your feed how do you

03:54analyze that in the moment to understand whether it's trustworthy or not? The first thing to ask

03:59yourself is who is sharing this video and what is their agenda? If the video mainly comes from an

04:05unverified or anonymous account it's probably best to check whether this information is truthful.

04:11Check if the video has been reported by reputable sources. For example the video Musk shared of

04:17Kamala Harris. If it was an official campaign ad it would have been shared on the democrats verified

04:23pages and Kamala Harris herself would have responded to the claims that she had said those

04:28things. In this case also since Elon Musk was actively campaigning for the republicans and since

04:34he has become a special employee of the Trump administration the fact that he shared this video

04:39of Kamala Harris suggests that it was to fit a narrative rather than to depict truth in its

04:44entirety. For regular internet users it pays to develop a healthy skepticism of everything you see.

04:52Consider is fake until otherwise proven true. I don't know. Killmonger was right.

05:00Now you see I would never say these things at least not in a public address but someone else

05:07someone like Jordan Peele. Thank you and stay woke.

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