On September 14, 2023 I spoke at Tūranga’s Election Special session “Is Artificial Intelligence Dangerous for Democracy?” with Professor Donald Matheson and Dr Zita Joyce from UC Media and Communications. At the event I discussed the newest technologies we talk about as ‘AI’, what’s new and not new about them, and some to cut through political messages coming our way during the election campaign.
At the event I used an example of generative AI, a fake news article proposing an alternative scenario for Jacinda Ardern’s resignation: “Ardern’s Rock n Roll Dream: New Zealand Prime Minister Resigns to Pursue Passion for Hard Rock”.
Here’s an excerpt (click the image to read the full story):
Wearing a leather jacket and a band t-shirt, she spoke passionately about her love for music.
“I’ve always had a burning desire to rock out, and I believe now is the time to chase that dream”
Although these new technologies are surprising and potentially concerning, I put concern about the use of AI to generate disinformation and misinformation in perspective. I discussed a recent example from the UK of the UK Conservative party changing their Twitter branding during a debate to imply tweets were from a fact checking organisation. Although generative AI provides possibilities to scale up deceptive messaging, this should best be understood as a continuation of long-term problems of online communication and difficulty determing who is behind specific messages online.
To respond to this, I proposed that one of the most profound things we can do in the context of an election is ignore the noise: the last billboard we pass, the last thing we heard a politician say, and the last social media post we read. Instead, as citizens we should try to understand the ideas and interests driving New Zealand’s political parties and what they’ve done when they’ve had power. This might mean ignoring the hot take of the political editor, talk show host, trending social media post, and instead visiting a library and reading some books! Knowledge about the ideas of political parties, their interests, and their histories provides the context to analyse and question the messages coming our way.
To help reduce the noise, I suggested we should recognise when we are mindlessly repeating the attack lines of politicians and interest groups. Just as ChatGPT is trained to regurgitate text by ‘reading’ many examples, there is a risk we let ourselves be trained too. We’ve got a choice about whether to be a bot or an AI. We can engage and participate in an election without being unthinking political text regurgitators, perhaps even ready to question the parties and ideas we hold dear.