None of this is surprising. I’m scared of criminals using it
From my iPad Betty > On Apr 2, 2023, at 6:52 PM, ghe2001 <ghe2...@pm.me> wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA256 > > This is from a few days ago -- all of them are doing it. I'm assuming this > story wasn't written by some AI software. This email wasn't. Which is > exactly what it'd say if it was... > > > By Shane Goldmacher > > The Democratic Party has begun testing the use of artificial intelligence to > write first drafts of some fund-raising messages, appeals that often perform > better than those written entirely by human beings. > > Fake A.I. images of Donald J. Trump getting arrested in New York spread > faster than they could be fact-checked last week. > > And voice-cloning tools are producing vividly lifelike audio of President > Biden — and many others — saying things they did not actually say. > > Artificial intelligence isn’t just coming soon to the 2024 campaign trail. > It’s already here. > > The swift advance of A.I. promises to be as disruptive to the political > sphere as to broader society. Now any amateur with a laptop can manufacture > the kinds of convincing sounds and images that were once the domain of the > most sophisticated digital players. This democratization of disinformation is > blurring the boundaries between fact and fake at a moment when the acceptance > of universal truths — that Mr. Biden beat Mr. Trump in 2020, for example — is > already being strained. > > And as synthetic media gets more believable, the question becomes: What > happens when people can no longer trust their own eyes and ears? > > Inside campaigns, artificial intelligence is expected to soon help perform > mundane tasks that previously required fleets of interns. Republican and > Democratic engineers alike are racing to develop tools to harness A.I. to > make advertising more efficient, to engage in predictive analysis of public > behavior, to write more and more personalized copy and to discover new > patterns in mountains of voter data. The technology is evolving so fast that > most predict a profound impact, even if specific ways in which it will upend > the political system are more speculation than science. > > “It’s an iPhone moment — that’s the only corollary that everybody will > appreciate,” said Dan Woods, the chief technology officer on Mr. Biden’s 2020 > campaign. “It’s going to take pressure testing to figure out whether it’s > good or bad — and it’s probably both.” > > OpenAI, whose ChatGPT chatbot ushered in the generative-text gold rush, has > already released a more advanced model. Google has announced plans to expand > A.I. offerings inside popular apps like Google Docs and Gmail, and is rolling > out its own chatbot. Microsoft has raced a version to market, too. A smaller > firm, ElevenLabs, has developed a text-to-audio tool that can mimic anyone’s > voice in minutes. Midjourney, a popular A.I. art generator, can conjure > hyper-realistic images with a few lines of text that are compelling enough to > win art contests. > > “A.I. is about to make a significant change in the 2024 election because of > machine learning’s predictive ability,” said Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump’s first > 2020 campaign manager, who has since founded a digital firm that advertises > some A.I. capabilities. > > Disinformation and “deepfakes” are the dominant fear. While forgeries are > nothing new to politics — a photoshopped image of John Kerry and Jane Fonda > was widely shared in 2004 — the ability to produce and share them has > accelerated, with viral A.I. images of Mr. Trump being restrained by the > police only the latest example. A fake image of Pope Francis in a white puffy > coat went viral in recent days, as well. > > Many are particularly worried about local races, which receive far less > scrutiny. Ahead of the recent primary in the Chicago mayoral race, a fake > video briefly sprung up on a Twitter account called “Chicago Lakefront News” > that impersonated one candidate, Paul Vallas. > > “Unfortunately, I think people are going to figure out how to use this for > evil faster than for improving civic life,” said Joe Rospars, who was chief > strategist on Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 campaign and is now the chief > executive of a digital consultancy. > > Those who work at the intersection of politics and technology return > repeatedly to the same historical hypothetical: If the infamous “Access > Hollywood” tape broke today — the one in which Mr. Trump is heard bragging > about assaulting women and getting away with it — would Mr. Trump acknowledge > it was him, as he did in 2016? > > The nearly universal answer was no. > > “I think about that example all the time,” said Matt Hodges, who was the > engineering director on Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign and is now executive > director of Zinc Labs, which invests in Democratic technology. Republicans, > he said, “may not use ‘fake news’ anymore. It may be ‘Woke A.I.’” > > For now, the frontline function of A.I. on campaigns is expected to be > writing first drafts of the unending email and text cash solicitations. > > “Given the amount of rote, asinine verbiage that gets produced in politics, > people will put it to work,” said Luke Thompson, a Republican political > strategist. > > As an experiment, The New York Times asked ChatGPT to produce a fund-raising > email for Mr. Trump. The app initially said, “I cannot take political sides > or promote any political agenda.” But then it immediately provided a template > of a potential Trump-like email. > > The chatbot denied a request to make the message “angrier” but complied when > asked to “give it more edge,” to better reflect the often apocalyptic tone of > Mr. Trump’s pleas. “We need your help to send a message to the radical left > that we will not back down,” the revised A.I. message said. “Donate now and > help us make America great again.” > > Among the prominent groups that have experimented with this tool is the > Democratic National Committee, according to three people briefed on the > efforts. In tests, the A.I.-generated content the D.N.C. has used has, as > often as not, performed as well or better than copy drafted entirely by > humans, in terms of generating engagement and donations. > > Party officials still make edits to the A.I. drafts, the people familiar with > the efforts said, and no A.I. messages have yet been written under the name > of Mr. Biden or any other person, two people said. The D.N.C. declined to > comment. > > Higher Ground Labs, a small venture capital firm that invests in political > technology for progressives, is currently working on a project, called > Quiller, to more systematically use A.I. to write, send and test the > effectiveness of fund-raising emails — all at once. > > “A.I. has mostly been marketing gobbledygook for the last three cycles,” said > Betsy Hoover, a founding partner at Higher Ground Labs who was the director > of digital organizing for President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign. “We are at > a moment now where there are things people can do that are actually helpful.” > > Political operatives, several of whom were granted anonymity to discuss > potentially unsavory uses of artificial intelligence they are concerned about > or planning to deploy, raised a raft of possibilities. > > Some feared bad actors could leverage A.I. chatbots to distract or waste a > campaign’s precious staff time by pretending to be potential voters. Others > floated producing deepfakes of their own candidate to generate personalized > videos — thanking supporters for their donations, for example. In India, one > candidate in 2020 produced a deepfake to disseminate a video of himself > speaking in different languages; the technology is far superior now. > > Mr. Trump himself shared an A.I. image in recent days that appeared to show > him kneeling in prayer. He posted it on Truth Social, his social media site, > with no explanation. > > One strategist predicted that the next generation of dirty tricks could be > direct-to-voter misinformation that skips social media sites entirely. What > if, this strategist said, an A.I. audio recording of a candidate was sent > straight to the voice mail of voters on the eve of an election? > > Synthetic audio and video are already swirling online, much of it as parody. > > On TikTok, there is an entire genre of videos featuring Mr. Biden, Mr. Obama > and Mr. Trump profanely bantering, with the A.I.-generated audio overlaid as > commentary during imaginary online video gaming sessions. > > On “The Late Show,” Stephen Colbert recently used A.I. audio to have the Fox > News host Tucker Carlson “read” aloud his text messages slamming Mr. Trump. > Mr. Colbert labeled the audio as A.I. and the image on-screen showed a blend > of Mr. Carlson’s face and a Terminator cyborg for emphasis. > > The right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec pushed out a “deepfake” video last > month of Mr. Biden announcing a national draft because of the conflict in > Ukraine. It was quickly seen by millions. > > “The videos we’ve seen in the last few weeks are really the canary in the > coal mine,” said Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at University of > California at Berkeley, who specializes in digital forensics. “We measure > advances now not in years but in months, and there are many months before the > election.” > > Some A.I. tools were deployed in 2020. The Biden campaign created a program, > code-named Couch Potato, that linked facial recognition, voice-to-text and > other tools to automate the transcription of live events, including debates. > It replaced the work of a host of interns and aides, and was immediately > searchable through an internal portal. > > The technology has improved so quickly, Mr. Woods said, that off-the-shelf > tools are “1,000 times better” than what had to be built from scratch four > years ago. > > One looming question is what campaigns can and cannot do with OpenAI’s > powerful tools. One list of prohibited uses last fall lumped together > “political campaigns, adult content, spam, hateful content.” > > Kim Malfacini, who helped create the OpenAI’s rules and is on the company’s > trust and safety team, said in an interview that “political campaigns can use > our tools for campaigning purposes. But it’s the scaled use that we are > trying to disallow here.” OpenAI revised its usage rules after being > contacted by The Times, specifying now that “generating high volumes of > campaign materials” is prohibited. > > Tommy Vietor, a former spokesman for Mr. Obama, dabbled with the A.I. tool > from ElevenLabs to create a faux recording of Mr. Biden calling into the > popular “Pod Save America” podcast that Mr. Vietor co-hosts. He paid a few > dollars and uploaded real audio of Mr. Biden, and out came an audio likeness. > > “The accuracy was just uncanny,” Mr. Vietor said in an interview. > > The show labeled it clearly as A.I. But Mr. Vietor could not help noticing > that some online commenters nonetheless seemed confused. “I started playing > with the software thinking this is so much fun, this will be a great vehicle > for jokes,” he said, “and finished thinking, ‘Oh God, this is going to be a > big problem.’” > > > > -- > Glenn English > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: ProtonMail > > wsBzBAEBCAAnBQJkKhT7CRDmyitW0WqrdxYhBMRG7aHlwXhPX67r9+bKK1bR > aqt3AABsmwgA5CwRAP/ByfW9G25XWcVr6vQGU12vIoiKAHWB3C7QNy+d/B7Y > 1pc706TAuvw5BPpugmiY26EghxL7pDhtCTQ6Af7Wo5qbXL1bzdJPrEs7znwM > 1JzFYtZTR/Vjd6l4U7l86i/i5sdVMeACgrxyzDhG9IO1nyhNpWFi0nRLzpE4 > yGFzq4UmttKTRGoqx2dXG5vrO/TYbJHw/nHx8maZYtEtvvjTgLIgldEmbidi > b/+xJDO3t1Kj5Xb1j0txqqoINXB8hsQNdSj+Sy3PlSBPA0vaV1v4IJrfnSjL > ugDRs7FVqENohLfczKl6hozIF1dhv+VEHlaotgcQxrjoybbZ28q47Q== > =QXTH > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- >
