Go beyond laws to keep AI from tainting elections

AI presents novel challenges to the integrity of elections. How can we strike the right balance to help both candidates and voters?

- Carol Soon and Samantha Quek

On Sept 9, a Bill was tabled in the Singapore Parliament to counter digitally manipulated content that may crop up during elections. It will apply to content that misrepresents or misportrays candidates.

The proposed Bill is timely with the impending general election in Singapore, which must be held before November 2025. However, is it sufficient and what more should be done to protect elections in Singapore?

THE GOOD AND THE BAD

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies can bring a host of benefits to election candidates, voters, fact-checkers and the media. For example, they can make the political campaigning process more efficient, especially when they are used to create campaign speeches, marketing e-mails and write fund-raising texts. AI tools can also be used to perform operational tasks like scheduling and budgeting. In so doing, they free up human labour for more high-touch campaigning activities.

AI tools can also help voters know the candidates better when they are used to reproduce election-related information in native languages. This is especially true for voters from linguistically diverse countries. In addition, AI tools such as Deep Media and Intel's FakeCatcher can help journalists and fact-checkers detect AI-generated and AI-manipulated election-related information, and debunk misinformation quickly.

However, generative AI also poses significant threats to elections. The fabrication of information - AI hallucinations - exacerbates the problem of misinformation.

Second, malicious actors can now produce and disseminate disinformation at scale due to the low cost and ease of use of generative AI tools. The AI-generated robocall message imitating US President Joe Biden reached thousands of voters within two days before the New Hampshire presidential primary. It cost only US$150 (S$194) to produce.