Will AI-generated media lead to political chaos? Can we stop it?

“Every tool can be used for good or can be used for evil, right? The tool itself is not necessarily the issue; it’s the use that you give to that tool. Right? You can have a hammer, and a hammer is very useful to build houses… but you can kill somebody with a hammer.”
    — Jesús Mantas, on the 12 Geniuses podcast

In the latest episode of “Debate Without Hate: Elections 2024,” Jesús Mantas talks about what it will mean to live in a world where we can’t easily separate fact from fiction. With AI-generated media growing more and more realistic, what chaos and dysfunction might AI-generated propaganda and deceptions lead to? And how might we prepare for those risks?

As you probably know, it’s already possible to use AI to create videos that are hard to distinguish from real footage. Jesús says this can alter the very foundations of our institutions and systems, leading to the “erosion of the basic trust layers of society.”

Many of our systems are built upon a foundation of being able to — fairly easily — verify something with our own eyes. In our modern world, we rely on video footage. What happens when that foundational level of trust is stripped away? 

Jesús wonders what will happen when someone can “show a jury a video that shows you or I killing somebody… How do you know that’s not true?… You’re there, in the video. I’ve seen it with my eyes.”

Regarding elections and other political areas, it’s easy to imagine AI leading to a wave of destabilizing propaganda. It can lead to people creating “highly personalized misinformation with the intention of interfering with the democratic process.”

In this episode, Jesús considers how we might prepare for this threat to our democracy. 

Watch this 12 Geniuses episode now. 

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