Political Parties Should Commit Not to Misuse Artificial Intelligence in Election Campaign – Malcolm Byrne

Fianna Fáil Senator Malcolm Byrne has called on all political parties to outline their approach for how Ireland will deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) and new technologies during the lifetime of the next Oireachtas.

He has also stressed again the need for parties and candidates to commit not to misuse AI in the General Election campaign.

Senator Byrne said,

“We are currently experiencing a technological revolution that will change almost all areas of our lives. We need to be alert to the opportunities and challenges that Artificial Intelligence might create. The next Government and Oireachtas will have to provide leadership in this space.”

He added that there is a real threat to our electoral processes through disinformation and misinformation and the possible use of deepfakes to try influence the General Election.

He said deepfakes had been used in recent elections in Slovakia and Argentina and pointed out how countries that want to undermine democracies, including Russia, China and Iran, will deploy technology to seek to influence poll results.

Malcolm Byrne noted that while one prominent TD has used a rather poor deepfake of Taylor Swift to seemingly “endorse” him, there are dangers of more sinister motives from others in deploying deepfakes.

“The Taylor Swift deepfake is slightly funny but it does point to where elections could be heading. We could yet see a deepfake of an Irish political leader appearing to say something controversial during the final days of an election. It could be shared tens of thousands of times on social media before the truth emerged and even then, some people would continue to believe it,” he said.

Mr Byrne accepted that disinformation and misinformation had been factors in previous elections but said deepfakes had “turbocharged” the threat.

He called on the Electoral Commission to raise awareness of the potential impact of disinformation and deepfakes.

Pointing to action to date, the Gorey based Senator said,

“The Government has established an independent AI Advisory Council, appointed an AI Ambassador and is investing in supports for AI enterprises. The European Union recently enacted the AI Act. But the next Oireachtas will need a special committee to focus on the potential of AI and other technologies and we will need public engagement on how we can reap the benefits while avoiding the harms.”

ENDS