AI technology could run upcoming elections.
QUICK FACTS:
- World Economic Forum (WEF) advisor Yuval Noah Harari stated in a recent address that artificial intelligence could run the 2024 election.
- AI may even begin crafting cult-like religions for people to support, according to the Israeli public intellectual.
- “Think for example about the next US Presidential race, in 2024, and try to imagine the impact of the new AI tools that can mass-produce political manifestos, fake news stories, and even holy scriptures for new cults,” Harari began.
- “In recent years, the politically influential Q Anon cult has formed around anonymous online texts, known as ‘Q drops,'” he continued. “Now, followers of this cult, which are millions now in the US and the rest of the world, collected, revered, and interpreted these Q drops as some kind of new scripture, as a sacred text.”
- “Now, to the best of our knowledge, all previous Q drops were composed by human beings and bots only helped to disseminate these texts online,” the philosopher added. “But in [the] future, we might see the first cults and religions in history whose revered texts were written by a non-human intelligence.”
OTHER COMMENTS FROM HARARI:
- Harari said in his address that “human rights are not a biological reality.”
- “They are not inscribed in our DNA. Human rights is something that we created with language by telling stories and writing laws,” the WEF advisor went onsay.
- “Gods are also not a biological or physical reality,” he added, with an image of what appeared to be the Tower of Babel being shown on the screen behind him. “Gods, too, is something that we humans have created with language by telling legends and writing scriptures.”
BACKGROUND:
- AI experts have warned that artificial intelligence may threaten elections.
- “What if Elon Musk personally calls you and tells you to vote for a certain candidate?” asked the founding CEO of the Allen Institute for AI, Oren Etzioni.
- “A lot of people would listen. But it’s not him,” he said, referring to technology impersonating individuals.
- “What happens if an international entity — a cybercriminal or a nation state — impersonates someone? What is the impact? Do we have any recourse?” asked Petko Stoyanov from the cybersecurity company Forcepoint. “We’re going to see a lot more misinformation from international sources.”
