Australia’s election regulator has warned artificial intelligence is making democracy harder to protect, but doesn’t believe it’s all up to him to fix.
Deepfakes and artificial intelligence-powered attacks are making elections harder to safeguard, but don’t leave all of it to the election regulator.
AI was boosting misinformation, foreign interference, and exacerbating threats to political figures, Australian Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday.
“It is a new threat that amplifies and accelerates existing threats to electoral integrity,” he said during Canberra hearings into the potentials and pitfalls of AI.
Pope floated a legal requirement to label deepfakes, but stressed the AEC’s enforcement powers were limited by its “fine tuned” design.