AI’s Impact on the 2024 Election: An Analysis

How AI is Changing Political Campaigns

New Generations of AI

The AI powering the ChatGPT chatbot is just the beginning of what’s to come. New generations of AI will find a plethora of uses in political campaigns. ChatGPT has made waves as the first broadly accessible AI that gives users a feeling of flowing, natural conversation. It’s been praised for its robust capability to produce prose and computer code. Numerous other AI tools have recently hit the market, offering voice, image, and video generation.

Concerns About AI in Elections

The breakneck pace of the industry’s progress has sparked concerns about how the technology could affect the democratic process, especially elections. Deepfakes and bots are the most often cited examples of how AI could affect elections. An AI can now manipulate images, voice, and video in a way that passes as convincing. Social media could be inundated with bots that appear to have real profile images and post comments that seem natural.

Experts Weigh In

The experts said the impact doesn’t appear to be groundbreaking just yet. The key will be for campaigns to develop “a rapid response” to quickly debunk the fakes. However, having the debunk achieve the same level of virality as the fake may be challenging. Teachers and professors have already been forced to use such tools to detect AI-generated essays their students try to pass as their own.

Voter Manipulation

Another concern about AI is that it may be capable of manipulating the electorate. After absorbing vast amounts of personal data from social media, an AI could theoretically pinpoint a voter’s psychological pressure points and use them to produce extremely personalized political ads to manipulate him. The experts, however, were skeptical about such a capability.

Hyperpersonalization

AI could dramatically change the game by producing personalized persuasion campaigns for individual voters at scale. But there are major roadblocks to that. One major problem is that it would take immense manpower to humanly manage thousands or even millions of such individualized campaigns. Campaign operatives are unlikely to risk truly leaving the work up to the AI.

The Future of AI in Politics

Both experts were sure to add the caveat that they’re only talking about the technology as is. “This is a current generation, right?” Delany said. “Five years from now. All bets are off. Who knows what’s going to happen?” Makembe made the timeframe even shorter. “What’s true today is not going to be necessarily by the end of the cycle next year,” he said. “I think it’s up to us to kind of keep track of.”

In conclusion, AI is changing political campaigns in ways we never thought possible. While there are concerns about the technology’s impact on the democratic process, experts believe that the current generation of AI is not a magic bullet. As the industry grows and AI becomes more embedded in what we do, there will be tools and counter tools to ensure that people are protected and not being lied to. It’s up to us to keep track of the technology’s progress and ensure that ethical guidelines are in place to protect voters.

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