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up front Monday 15 May 2023
AI presents political peril for 2024 with threat to mislead voters

Continued from Front a crime or expressing rac- and starts with a strange,
ist views; video footage slightly warped image of
The implications for the showing someone giving Biden and the text “What
2024 campaigns and elec- a speech or interview they if the weakest president
tions are as large as they never gave. Fake images we’ve ever had was re-
are troubling: Generative designed to look like local elected?”
AI can not only rapidly pro- news reports, falsely claim- A series of AI-generated im-
duce targeted campaign ing a candidate dropped ages follows: Taiwan under
emails, texts or videos, it out of the race. attack; boarded up store-
also could be used to mis- “What if Elon Musk person- fronts in the United States
lead voters, impersonate ally calls you and tells you as the economy crum-
candidates and undermine to vote for a certain can- bles; soldiers and armored
elections on a scale and at didate?” said Oren Etzioni, military vehicles patrolling
a speed not yet seen. the founding CEO of the local streets as tattooed
“We’re not prepared for Allen Institute for AI, who criminals and waves of im-
this,” warned A.J. Nash, stepped down last year to migrants create panic. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., flanked by Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill.,
vice president of intelli- start the nonprofit AI2. “A “An AI-generated look into left, and Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., holds a news conference at the
gence at the cybersecurity lot of people would listen. the country’s possible fu- Capitol in Washington, Nov. 4, 2021.
firm ZeroFox. “To me, the But it’s not him.” ture if Joe Biden is re-elect- Associated Press
big leap forward is the au- Former President Donald ed in 2024,” reads the ad’s
dio and video capabilities Trump, who is running in description from the RNC. anov said. “We’re going in a Manhattan criminal
that have emerged. When 2024, has shared AI-gener- The RNC acknowledged to see a lot more misinfor- court for falsifying business
you can do that on a large ated content with his fol- its use of AI, but others, in- mation from international records. Other AI-generat-
scale, and distribute it on lowers on social media. A cluding nefarious political sources.” ed images showed Trump
social platforms, well, it’s manipulated video of CNN campaigns and foreign AI-generated political dis- resisting arrest, though their
going to have a major im- host Anderson Cooper that adversaries, will not, said information already has creator was quick to ac-
pact.” Trump shared on his Truth Petko Stoyanov, global gone viral online ahead knowledge their origin.
AI experts can quickly rat- Social platform on Friday, chief technology officer at of the 2024 election, from Legislation that would re-
tle off a number of alarm- which distorted Cooper’s Forcepoint, a cybersecurity a doctored video of Bi- quire candidates to label
ing scenarios in which gen- reaction to the CNN town company based in Austin, den appearing to give a campaign advertisements
erative AI is used to create hall this past week with Texas. Stoyanov predict- speech attacking trans- created with AI has been
synthetic media for the pur- Trump, was created using ed that groups looking to gender people to AI-gen- introduced in the House by
poses of confusing voters, an AI voice-cloning tool. meddle with U.S. democ- erated images of children Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y.,
slandering a candidate or A dystopian campaign racy will employ AI and supposedly learning satan- who has also sponsored
even inciting violence. ad released last month by synthetic media as a way ism in libraries. legislation that would re-
Here are a few: Automat- the Republican National to erode trust. AI images appearing to quire anyone creating syn-
ed robocall messages, in a Committee offers another “What happens if an inter- show Trump’s mug shot thetic images to add a wa-
candidate’s voice, instruct- glimpse of this digitally ma- national entity — a cyber- also fooled some social termark indicating the fact.
ing voters to cast ballots nipulated future. The online criminal or a nation state media users even though Some states have offered
on the wrong date; audio ad, which came after Presi- — impersonates someone. the former president didn’t their own proposals for ad-
recordings of a candidate dent Joe Biden announced What is the impact? Do we take one when he was dressing concerns about
supposedly confessing to his reelection campaign, have any recourse?” Stoy- booked and arraigned deepfakes.q

Yosemite National Park to close over flood threat

that the Lower and North Spring weather is quickly occur.
Pines Campgrounds and melting huge amounts of The state Department of
the Housekeeping Camp snow that accumulated in Water Resources said ear-
will be shut over fears that mountains from a series of lier this month that despite
waterways could overspill epic winter storms. a brief increase in tem-
their banks. Storm runoff has caused peratures in late April, the
The National Weather Ser- flooding of San Joaquin snowpack has melted at a
vice issued a flood watch Valley agricultural fields be- slower pace than average
for the area until at least low the southern Sierra. But because of below-average
Friday. the major melt of the mas- temperatures early in the
“The combination of ex- sive snowpack has yet to month and cloud cover.q
tended hot weather and
abundant snow means
the Merced River may re-
main above flood stage for
In this April 7, 2018, file photo, the raging Bridalveil Fall plummets some time,” the park said in
into Yosemite Valley, while closed to the public due to a flooding a statement.
Merced River, in Yosemite National Park, Calif. An update on the closures
Associated Press will be provided Monday
evening.
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, because of a forecast of Late last month, eastern
Calif. (AP) — Three popu- flooding as warming tem- sections of the famed Yo-
lar campgrounds at Cali- peratures melt the Sierra semite Valley were closed
fornia’s Yosemite National Nevada’s massive snow- for a few days over fears of
Park will be temporar- pack. floods that never material-
ily closed starting Monday Park officials said Sunday ized.