The use of artificial intelligence (AI) 'deepfake' mimics of real politicians to influence elections is set to increase, a pundit says.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has already used a deepfake — a convincing computer-generated video impersonation of a real person speaking and acting — to ridicule former US President Donald Trump in a campaign advert for the Republican primaries.
Researcher Andy Mok told Sputnik he expects to see more politicians employing deepfakes of their opponents and others to further their political campaigns.
"We know that American politics has a long and storied, if not notorious, history of applying technology to win races, sometimes in very underhanded ways," Mok said. "So I think it's pretty safe to assume that generative AI deepfakes will be no different."
The commentator said the "genie is out of the bottle" as the potential losses from being the last to use the technology against rivals was "too costly."
"We know how cutthroat, how ruthless these political campaigns can be," Mok said. "It's not only an arms race of raising the most money, but a lot of times deploying that money not only to tell the electorate what a great candidate you are, but to undermine your opponent through opposition research, negative campaigns, etc."
However, the risk is not solely from sophisticated high-tech facsimiles of politicians and celebrities.
"We have seen instances of misinformation, deliberate misinformation that doesn't require a deepfake video technology," Mok said. "So it's not just with deepfakes, but we have to also see that this is one of the problems of social media, too, where in places like India, Pakistan, where false information has been used to provoke real world violence against different ethnic groups."
For more cutting-edge commentary on the big news stories, check out our Sputnik News show The Final Countdown.