Artificial Intelligence a ‘threat to democracy’ says government expert ahead of 2024 elections

According to one of the world’s leading computer scientists, artificial intelligence will threaten our democracy ahead of upcoming elections in the UK and US.

above Interview with Beth Rigby… Dame Wendy Hall says AI’s ability to damage democracy should be of immediate concern above any existential threat posed by the technology.

UK artificial intelligence The skill champion told Beth: “Next year we’re going to see an increase in misinformation, a profound falsification of this world, because AI makes it so easy to do that.

“You can just get tools from the internet and it’s getting harder and harder to detect that a video, a photo or a piece of text has been faked.”

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Dame Wendy sits on the government’s AI Council, an “independent expert committee” that provides “advice to the government and senior leadership of the AI ​​ecosystem”.

Additionally, Dame Wendy is a full-time professor of computer science at the University of Southampton, where one of her specialties is AI.

She added: “We have two big elections coming up next year – US, UK – and the EU has elections too.

“I see this as a threat to democracy. In the sense that we have to help people understand where they’re getting their messages from.

“I think that’s more important than worrying about an existential threat in the next hundred years, but, I’m not saying the existential threat isn’t there.

“That’s very unlikely at the moment, I think.

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“Let’s say it’s unlikely at the moment, but it’s a possibility.

“So we have to be prepared for the fact that we’re controlling the AI, so that we don’t become slaves to that master, that’s where the regulation comes in.”

Ms. Wendy wants the upcoming global summit on AI – to be held in the UK – to focus on deep-rooted spoofs, where people are added to images and videos by AI.

“We need people to quickly put together the technology used to detect counterfeits and to make sure that something comes from a trusted source,” she said.

Despite warnings about the threat to elections, Dame Wendy has suggested that AI could improve the decision-making of politicians by helping them condense information for briefs, as they “usually talk about things they know nothing about”.

“One thing you can do with generalized AI is give it a file and ask it to summarize it for you,” she said.

Dame Wendy said the statement by another adviser to the prime minister, Matt Clifford, that artificial intelligence may have the power behind “killer many” advances in just two years’ time is an “overreaction” to the risks posed by AI.

Dame Wendy said: “We’re not close to that. The headline that says we have two years to save the world is very misleading and the quote is taken out of context.”

Again, she points out that “things can get out of hand” in “downstream” generations.

“I’m very happy we are leading that we need to think about global regulation in the field of AI the same way we think about climate science.

“We think about nuclear threats, and we think about chemical biological warfare. At that level, we have to discuss it.”

How will AI kill us? “By developing a drug that kills us all,” thought Dame Wendy.

“Artificial intelligence technology and artificial intelligence machines can develop a new drug and if it falls into the wrong hands, it could be sold as a great cure for such things,” she said. , while noting the failure of the medical industry to grasp the potential harms of drugs like thalidomide.

‘Freedom of speech at risk’

Dame Wendy also talked about difficulties with the government Secure Invoice Online.

The bill, which the government says is introduced to protect children and target people who share illegal material, has been criticized for the fact that it would give authorities access to private messages.

Tech companies have also said that some government requests to provide backdoors into people’s previously private messages undermine the technology’s ability to protect against bad guys.

Dame Wendy said: “We’ve got the Online Safety Bill, but the point is: Yes, we want to eliminate child abuse offline.

“Yes, we want the big tech companies to be responsible for the really bad stuff that you can detect and trace its origin etc and remove offline.

“But we have freedom of speech at risk, and my choice is not necessarily your choice.

“It’s hard to say that companies or governments decide what we can and can’t say online; it’s a very difficult area.”

The AI ​​expert also talked about Neuralink, Company owned by Elon Musk aims to connect the human brain and the computer.

Dame Wendy says it’s “wonderful” for people with disabilities – but also stresses that it means a world “where computers can read your brainwaves”.

“I have to say that world is a bit scary. I want to make sure we really understand what we’re doing with that technology.

“So I’d like to think this is a new technology that hasn’t hit the mainstream yet, but it’s definitely coming.”