POV: AI could easily take over our elections—and undermine democracy
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Imagine that soon political technologists develop a machine called Clogger, a political campaign in a black box. Clogger relentlessly pursues just one objective: to maximize the chances that its candidate—the campaign that buys the services of Clogger Inc.—prevails in an election. ...
European Union regulators are moving in this direction. Policymakers revised the European Parliament’s draft of its Artificial Intelligence Act to designate “AI systems to influence voters in campaigns” as “high risk” and subject to regulatory scrutiny.
One constitutionally safer, if smaller, step, already adopted in part by European internet regulators and in California, is to prohibit bots from passing themselves off as people. For example, regulation might require that campaign messages come with disclaimers when the content they contain is generated by machines rather than humans. ...
The possibility of a system like Clogger shows that the path toward human collective disempowerment may not require some superhuman artificial general intelligence. It might just require overeager campaigners and consultants who have powerful new tools that can effectively push millions of people’s many buttons.
See the full story here: https://www.fastcompany.com/90904487/pov-ai-could-easily-take-over-our-elections-and-undermine-democracy
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