Microsoft founder Bill Gates thinks a powerful new AI could program deepfakes and disinformation so bad they disrupt political processes around the world.
“AI-generated deepfakes and disinformation could undermine elections and democracy,” Gates said in a new blog post on Tuesday. “On a larger scale, AI-generated deepfakes could be used to attempt to crash an election. Of course, it doesn’t take sophisticated technology to cast doubt on the rightful winner of an election, but AI it will make it easier.”
The post marks an escalating tone for Gates on AI versus his more confident take on it in a March blog post.
Gates is right to issue the warning ahead of what is already shaping up to be another controversial presidential election in 2024.
There were three times as many video format deepfakes and eight times as many voice deepfakes posted online this year than in 2022, Reuters reported, citing data from DeepMedia.
One of the most notable political deepfakes of 2023 came in mid-April.
An AI-generated clip circulated on social media showed former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president.
The video is considered a deepfake. But it’s unclear whether the clip affected the minds of voters.
A count of 500,000 video and voice deepfakes will be shared this year on social media websites worldwide, DeepMedia Projects.
The AI arms race
Gates’ comments on artificial intelligence and the political process are likely to send ripples throughout the tech beast he founded.
That’s because Microsoft (MSFT) is making a huge bet today that the future will depend heavily on AI.
In early February, Microsoft unveiled a new version of its Bing search engine that runs on a more powerful version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT natural language AI technology. Microsoft said it would add ChatGPT to its 365 business software suite that includes Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
This came after Microsoft unveiled a $10 billion investment in OpenAI in late January, which ignited an arms race in the tech sector.
Google (GOOG, GOOGL) responded by introducing its Bard chatbot.
Salesforce (CRM) introduced Einstein GPT, which is said to be the world’s first AI generative customer relationship management (CRM) technology. Einstein GPT can generate personalized emails that salespeople can target to customers and craft specific responses to key customer questions.
Amid this flurry of AI development, Gates has nonetheless sounded a hopeful note.
“Two things make me cautiously optimistic,” Gates said. “One is that people can learn not to take everything literally. For years, email users have fallen for scams in which someone posing as a Nigerian prince promises a large reward in exchange for sharing their number. credit card. But eventually, most people learned to look twice at those emails. As the scams became more sophisticated, so did many of their targets.”
“Well, we need to build that same muscle for deepfakes,” Gates added. “The other thing that gives me hope is that AI can help identify deepfakes and create them.”
Brian Sozzi is the executive editor of Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and go LinkedIn. Suggestions on deals, mergers, activist situations or anything else? Send an email to [email protected]
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