This is the first time in human history that LLM's (rightly or wrongly called "AI's") like ChatGPT and Claude will be used to create realistic sounding and looking content for social media platforms with an eye to influencing elections.
Seventy-one percent of people living in democracies will vote in a national election between now and the end of next year. Among them: Argentina and Poland in October, Taiwan in January, Indonesia in February, India in April, the European Union and Mexico in June, and the US in November. Nine African democracies, including South Africa, will have elections in 2024. Australia and the UK don't have fixed dates, but elections are likely to occur in 2024.
That is a scary and sobering thought. Does truth even exist anymore? Does it still matter? Did it ever?
I know that much the exact sciences is in the middle of a "replication crisis", meaning that long held believes simply cannot be proven when a new experimenter does the same test under the same circumstances. The reasons are very simple, I think. More scientists need to produce more papers because that is how they achieve tenure. Any measurement that is used to grade someone will be malformed until it becomes meaningless.
Political powers like to undermine their adversaries by influencing their voters. This is also a simply to understand drive.
Personally I think I'm insulated from most of the direct effects (but not the resulting harm) of these voter-steering-propaganda-channels because I don't watch or ready much on social medias and I also never vote. I've voted once, and that is quite enough, thank you.
It seems that every new year brings new craziness. Who would have believed that free countries would mandate curfews, QR codes for entry and implement other stringent emergency laws?
Who knows that 2024 will bring 🤔?
