Although voting isn’t until November, the US elections have already started. Despite being American, I still feel confused by the many types of primaries and caucuses that can be held. Each State does something different, at a different time, and in a different way. This election, however, will be the first one after the introduction of ChatGPT (and related generative AI technologies) entered the world. I can’t even imagine the impact this will have.
First of all, generative AI can churn out content at a pace much faster than previous technologies. It’s unclear what quality and type of content the technology will generate. Misinformation. Disinformation. Straight up propaganda. Real information. It’s anybody’s guess and it will be incredibly be difficult to verify all the content, all the time. Fact checking will fall behind. By the time the facts are verified, the false content will already be viral.
Secondly, generative AI can create different formats. Maybe a couple years ago things like fake videos and edited photos were easy to spot. This is no longer the case. The AI technologies can now create convincing and realistic fakes. Even more alarmingly, they can do this in a short amount of time. Normally doctoring a video or a photo would take a human some time to do and require specialized software or skills. This may have been a deterrent, or at least slowed down the pace.
Thirdly, the laws haven’t been able to keep up with the pace of the technology. It’s not clear what’s allowed and the ethics around how to use this new technology haven’t been fully developed yet. All of these factors are going to result in an interesting election. With the generative AI technology still kind of new, though heavily used, it’s unclear what will happen.
All I can think is that this year, the election won’t just be about the candidates.
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