Fake News 2.0: The Election Threat from A.I.

Social media has wreaked havoc. Are we ready for generative A.I.?

- JEREMY KAHN

ON FEB. 27, the eve of Chicago's mayoral election, a Twitter account calling itself Chicago Lakefront News posted an image of candidate Paul Vallas, a former city budget director and school district chief who was in a tight four-way contest for the city's top job, along with an audio recording. On the soundtrack, Vallas seems to downplay police shootings, saying that "in my day" a cop could kill as many as 18 civilians in his career and "no one would bat an eye." The audio continues, "This 'Defund the Police' rhetoric is going to cause unrest and lawlessness in the city of Chicago. We need to stop defunding the police and start refunding them."

As it turned out, Vallas said none of those things. The audio was quickly debunked as a fake, likely created with easily accessible artificial intelligence software that clones voices. The Chicago Lakefront News account, which had been set up just days before the video was posted, quickly deleted the post but not before the tweet had been seen by thousands and widely recirculated, with some apparently tricked into believing the "recording" was authentic. The audio had little impact on the mayoral race: Vallas won a plurality and was headed toward a runoff election at press time. But the Vallas voice clone is a scary preview of the sort of misinformation experts say we should expect to face in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, thanks to rapid advances in A.I. capabilities.