Connect with us

News

Fears Rise as AI Threatens UK Elections: Senior Politicians and Security Services on Alert

Fears Rise as AI Threatens UK Elections Senior Politicians and Security Services on Alert

(CTN News) – There is concern among high-ranking politicians and security officials that the United Kingdom could be the next country to have its elections impacted by the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

Sir Robert Buckland, the former secretary of justice, has called on the government to take stronger action against a “clear and present danger” to democracy in the United Kingdom.

Especially worrisome to the Conservative lawmaker, who is now chair of the Northern Ireland select committee, is the proliferation of deepfakes, which are convincing audio and video recordings of politicians making false statements.

He contends that AI-generated disinformation’s danger to democracies is not confined to a dismal future.

Here we are in the future. It is taking place.

“Unless the policymakers [in the UK] are showing some leadership on the need for a strong and effective domestic set of guardrails – plus international work – then we are going to be behind the curve.”

The next general election is scheduled for January 2025, and he is worried that it may be similarly disrupted as the one in 2017—when campaigning was halted only days before voting day in the aftermath of the bombing at Manchester Arena.

Tom Tugendhat, minister of home affairs and security, heads the Defending Democracy Taskforce, which the UK government established last year to prevent foreign meddling in elections.

It does not address novel dangers. All around the globe, election campaigns have a history of using false information and underhanded tactics. For a long time, people have been able to alter photos and memes using Photoshop, and even leaders’ voices have been altered.

In its annual report, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a division of GCHQ, highlighted the new development: the widespread availability of robust generative AI tools capable of producing convincing imposters.

Some perceive the proliferation of massive language models like ChatGPT and text-to-speech or text-to-video technologies as a boon to anyone determined to obstruct elections, whether they are nefarious state actors or bedroom miscreants.

“Large language models will almost certainly be used to generate fabricated content, AI-created hyper-realistic bots will make the spread of disinformation easier and the manipulation of media for use in deepfake campaigns will likely become more advanced,” the NCSC states in its research.

An audio clip of Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer allegedly angrily abusing aides surfaced on social media during the party convention in September, giving the Labour Party a taste of what was to follow. Despite 1.5 million views, the video was swiftly criticized as a hoax.

In November, a phony audio recording purporting to be from London Mayor Sadiq Khan requesting the rescheduling of Armistice Day in light of a pro-Palestinian demonstration went viral on social media.

Even while the Met Police found no crime, Mr. Khan warned that deepfakes may be a “slippery slope” for democracy if they were not adequately controlled.

A deepfake video of a party leader stepping forward in the final moments before an intensely contested election is the worst possible outcome, according to Sir Robert Buckland and others concerned about this matter.

In September, the general election in Slovakia occurred precisely when a phoney audio clip supposedly showing the leader of the liberal Progressive Slovakia party, Michal Šimečka, outlining methods to manipulate the vote surfaced.

Mr. Šimečka was ultimately defeated in the election by the pro-Moscow populist Smer-SSD party.

“Who knows how many votes it changed – or how many were convinced not to vote at all?” “In a recent speech,” Tom Tugendhat said.

Even in Argentina, where the right-wing libertarian Javier Milei was elected, AI-generated visuals and music played a role in the recent election and referendum.

According to Sir Robert Buckland, these elections demonstrate the consequences of insufficient legislation. He has urged the government to move forward with measures to enhance Ofcom’s oversight of disinformation.

His letter to Science Secretary Michelle Donelan asks for more specific instructions for social media companies on how to adhere to new national security regulations meant to prevent foreign involvement, and he is among a number of Tory MPs who have made this request.

Ms. Donelan assured a gathering of Labour, Tory, and SNP lawmakers last week that the government was treating the AI danger with the utmost seriousness.

Ms. Donelan, a member of the Defending Democracy Taskforce, dismissed the idea of additional legislation while stating that the United Kingdom is cooperating with social media platforms and foreign partners, including the United States, to counter the danger.

She assured the science and technology committee, “I expect that by the next general election we will have robust mechanisms in place that will be able to tackle these topics.”

The question then becomes, how can we prevent deepfakes from eroding democracy?

The spreading of pornographic deepfakes is already unlawful in England and Wales, according to others who think they should be outlawed altogether.

Ms. Donelan is among many who have suggested that anti-fake technology should be a component of the solution.

Is there a foolproof way to determine if a video is fake?

The “cat and mouse game” is how Jan Nicola Beyer, a research coordinator at Democracy Reporting International, puts it.

“The detection mechanisms get better, but in the moment they get better, the generative AI models get better in order to generate even more convincing and even harder to detect content.”

He went on to say that audio was especially difficult to disprove.

He said it was equally crucial to stop them from going viral as it was for fact-checkers and news outlets to identify probable fakes and offer proof for their judgment.

Regarding the global elections that will be held in 2024, most computer companies are already hard at work on security solutions.

However, according to Mr. Beyer, they need to stop recommending content from questionable sources and “demonetize” those that aren’t.

Perhaps deepfakes aren’t the main issue, though.

There is a “slight risk” of “fixating” on one sort of risk, according to October remarks made by Ken McCallum, director general of MI5, an agency assisting the government in fighting foreign election influence.

“And then if you’ve got creative adversaries, they decide not to play that card and do something quite different,” he informed the media.

“So I wouldn’t want to make some sort of strong prediction that [deepfakes] will feature in the forthcoming election, but we would be not doing our jobs properly if we didn’t really think through the possibility.”

An anonymous security expert told the BBC that, although deepfakes pose a greater danger in the long run, the use of AI to create more convincing “spearphishing” emails—emails that trick victims into clicking on links that corrupt their computers—is a more pressing concern.

Russian intelligence employed this method in 2016 to obtain the emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, which were subsequently leaked online after her close loss in the presidential election.

Some UK security officials secretly hope that foreign spies and their assisters will be too preoccupied with events in the US next November to interfere in a UK election that could happen around the same time, given that the US election is likely to be just as fiercely contested.

The risk that focusing too much on the possibility of deepfakes and AI meddling in politics could cause people to lose faith in the democratic process is another concern voiced by high-ranking national security officials.

The generative AI bug has been fixed; however, deepfakes will still be a concern.

Some experts are concerned that voters can become confused about what is real and what is not if social media is inundated with synthetic content, even if it is clearly labeled.

A phenomenon known as the “liar’s dividend” might emerge in such a setting, making it easier for dishonest politicians to pass off false claims as true.

At the next election, it will be the task of the authorities, the media, the digital companies, and the political parties to stop that from happening.

News

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

Continue Reading

News

2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

Continue Reading

News

The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

SEE ALSO:

Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.

Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

Continue Reading

Trending