US secretary of state Antony Blinken has warned that authoritarian governments are going to meddle in a flurry of elections, and the US will keep pressing to disrupt misinformation efforts from China and Russia.
“Nearly half the people of the world are going to be going to the polls this year – this is an extraordinary election year in country after country,” Blinken told a session at the Summit for Democracy conference in Seoul on Monday. “But citizens and candidates will face a flood of falsehoods that suffocate serious civic debate.”
The top US diplomat’s comments come during a year in which large democracies around the world — from India and South Africa to the US and UK — are set to hold key elections, and at a time when huge advances in generative artificial intelligence are fuelling increased worries about fake content influencing voters.
“Our competitors, our adversaries are using disinformation to exploit fissures within our democracies by further sowing suspicion, cynicism and instability. Pitting one group against another. Discrediting our institutions,” he said.
Since US tech companies and specialised American-made microchips are at the forefront of AI innovation, US leaders wield particular sway over how the field is overseen.
The top US envoy also said during his visit to the South Korean capital that governments are using AI to spy on their citizens and harass journalists.
He cited US efforts to unveil Chinese propaganda campaigns in Africa and Southeast Asia and Russian attempts to sow its own narrative about the war in Ukraine in Latin America.
Misinformation
Blinken said democracies need to do more to disrupt misinformation, including encouraging powerful social media companies to label misleading or false content generated by new AI technologies.
Read: AI deepfakes and SA’s fight to protect the 2024 election
“Digital technologies, social media and now artificial intelligence, they’re dramatically accelerating what has already been an incredibly fast pace of change, but that accelerant has also created” waves of disinformation, fuelling polarisation and confusion, he said. — Iain Marlow, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP
