Listening to David Pecker’s testimony in the Trump 2016 Election Interference case today, I thought about the very real concerns that folks have about potential election manipulations facilitated by AI deep fake technology. For example, one might create a deep fake showing a candidate accepting a bribe – complete with voices and images that depict a sting operation that never really happened. Or perhaps, AI might create a deep fake that shows a candidate handing Top Secret documents to an adversary.
But as I listened to Pecker, I realized that such dirty tricks have always been with us. Pecker’s disinformation campaign didn’t only conceal potentially injurious information about Trump, it fabricated disinformation about his 2016 opponents – Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton among them. Of course, it is always those among us who are the least engaged and most gullible (seeking confirmation of beliefs we already harbor) who will be bamboozled by disinformation.
The effect of such manipulations, whether based on human depravity or AI fakery, is to undermine democracy by shaking our confidence in our institutions – machinations that are truly nefarious.