The world’s largest tech companies have agreed to tackle what they are calling deceptive artificial intelligence in elections.
Amazon, Google and Microsoft are among 20 firms who have signed the accord committing them to fighting voter-deceiving content, pledging to deploy technology to detect and counter the material.
But one industry expert says the voluntary pact will do “little” to “prevent harmful content being posted.”
“We have a responsibility to help ensure these tools don’t become weaponized in elections,” Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, said.
The accord’s signatories have vowed to target content that “deceptively fakes or alters the appearance, voice or actions” of key figures in elections and seek to deal with audio, images or videos that provide false information to voters about when, where and how they can vote.
On Feb. 14, the U.S. deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, told the BBC AI threatened to “supercharge” disinformation at elections.
The Tech Accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections was announced at the Munich Security Conference. The issue has come into sharp focus as billions of people will be voting this year in countries including the U.S., U.K. and India, as well as in the EU.
Deepak Padmanabhan from Queen’s University Belfast, who has co-authored a paper on elections and AI, told the BBC it was promising to see the companies acknowledge the wide range of challenges posed by AI, but he warned they needed to take more “proactive action” against misinformation.
He also said “more realistic” AI content may slip detection by tech giants which could still be used to influence this year’s elections.
