4 ways AI can be used and abused in the 2024 election, from deepfakes to foreign interference [Video]

The American public is on alert about artificial intelligence and the 2024 election.

A September 2024 poll by the Pew Research Center found that well over half of Americans worry that artificial intelligence – or AI, computer technology mimicking the processes and products of human intelligence – will be used to generate and spread false and misleading information in the campaign.

My academic research on AI may help quell some concerns. While this innovative technology certainly has the potential to manipulate voters or spread lies at scale, most uses of AI in the current election cycle are, so far, not novel at all.

I’ve identified four roles AI is playing or could play in the 2024 campaign – all arguably updated versions of familiar election activities.

1. Voter information

The 2022 launch of ChatGPT brought the promise and peril of generative AI into public consciousness. This technology is called “generative” because it produces text responses to user prompts: It can …