Microsoft warns China may use AI-generated content to disrupt upcoming polls in India, USA

Technology main Microsoft has warned that China may use Artificial Intelligence-generated content to disrupt upcoming polls in India, South Korea and the USA.

“China is utilizing pretend social media accounts to ballot voters on what divides them most to sow division and probably affect the result of the U.S. presidential election in its favour. China has additionally elevated its use of AI-generated content to additional its objectives all over the world,” Microsoft stated in its report.

Microsoft stated, moreover, North Korea has elevated its cryptocurrency heists and provide chain assaults to fund and additional its army objectives and intelligence assortment.

In his warning, Microsoft stated: “With main elections going down all over the world this 12 months, significantly in India, South Korea and the United States, we assess that China will, at a minimal, create and amplify AI-generated content to profit its pursuits.”

“Despite the possibilities of such content affecting election outcomes remaining low, China’s rising experimentation in augmenting memes, movies, and audio will seemingly proceed – and may show more practical down the road. We can anticipate to see North Korea proceed to steal cryptocurrency to fund house, missile, and nuclear packages in addition to launch supply-chain assaults on the defence sector,” the warning stated.

Microsoft claimed that China tried an AI-generated disinformation marketing campaign in the course of the Taiwan presidential polls this 12 months.

“The Taiwanese presidential election in January 2024 noticed a surge in the use of AI-generated content to increase IO operations by CCP-affiliated actors,” the warning stated.

Microsoft stated it was the primary time it registered a nation-state actor entity utilizing AI content in makes an attempt to affect a international election.

“The group we name Storm-1376, often known as Spamouflage and Dragonbridge, was probably the most prolific. For instance, on election day, it posted suspected AI-generated pretend audio of Foxconn proprietor and election candidate Terry Gou (who had bowed out of the competition in November 2023) endorsing one other candidate in the presidential race. Gou had made no such assertion. YouTube rapidly eliminated this content earlier than it reached a wider viewers,” the report stated.

“Storm-1376 has promoted a collection of AI-generated memes of Taiwan’s then-Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate William Lai, and different Taiwanese officers in addition to Chinese dissidents all over the world. These have included an rising use of AI-generated TV information anchors that Storm-1376 has deployed since at the very least February 2023,” learn the warning.