China will use AI to disrupt elections in the US, South Korea and India, Microsoft warns

Beijing did a test run in Taiwan using AI-generated content to influence voters away from a pro-sovereignty candidate

China will attempt to disrupt elections in the US, South Korea and India this year with artificial intelligence-generated content after making a dry run with the presidential poll in Taiwan, Microsoft has warned.

The US tech firm said it expected Chinese state-backed cyber groups to target high-profile elections in 2024, with North Korea also involved, according to a report by the company’s threat intelligence team published on Friday.

“As populations in India, South Korea and the United States head to the polls, we are likely to see Chinese cyber and influence actors, and to some extent North Korean cyber actors, work toward targeting these elections,” the report reads.

Microsoft said that “at a minimum” China will create and distribute through social media AI-generated content that “benefits their positions in these high-profile elections”.

Immersive_Matthew,

Not defending the CCP, but I would submit that every country is using AI to undermine other nations including their own.

1bluepixel,
@1bluepixel@lemmy.world avatar

Yep. There’s a tendency to single out China’s bad behavior for stuff other world powers (including the U.S. for sure) also do.

A great example is China’s meddling in Canadian politics these last few years. An ex-RCMP official pointed out that a lot of other countries do it, including allies. He singled out Russia and India, but also the U.S. (I mean, how could the U.S. not try to influence their neighbors’ politics.)

But China makes the headlines, every single time.

wurzelgummidge,

The US has been meddling in other countries elections for the last hundred years, and if they don’t get their way they impose sanctions, organise a coups and commence other destabilisation efforts.

Immersive_Matthew,

I suspect that the end is coming for misinformation as AI is making it easier and easier to spread, which is having the effect of simply forcing people to actually think for themselves.

noxy,
@noxy@yiffit.net avatar

China will disrupt elections in the US, South Korea and India, Microsoft warns

better headline

Corkyskog,

But AI is scary, it’s like an assault weapon. No one knows what it actually is, but feared nonetheless.

petrol_sniff_king,

… Image generation. Fabricated stories. Lies. Really?

You don’t see the potential for an automated evidence and witness account system to deluge the public sphere with “proof” that Cornel West, or whoever your favorite is, is running a pedophile ring in a pizza parlor basement?

You know how many times I’ve seen a picture and thought “ah. huh.” before later having it pointed out to me that, yes, actually, the hands are kinda fucked up. And you think this has no greater potential for swaying what stupid bullshit the average voter believes in.

—Actually, clear something up for me.

Do you believe in the power of generative AI to uplift and strengthen what today’s working people are capable of achieving—as a business tool. The same way the Internet revolutionized commerce and international business dealing.

Or do you believe it is simple, ineffective toy software, feared for no reason, and with no greater appeal than hobbyists looking to spice up their DnD character sheets.

Do you believe that AI generated images are “art” and that “prompt writing” should be recognized as a skill equal to that of a brush, only faster?

Or do you believe that a state would find it so useless it wouldn’t even make the strategy meeting for their next election cycle.

It’s a wide and diverse spectrum, I’m sure. Please, illuminate me.

hark,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

Billionaires will completely control elections with or without AI.

Socsa,

Hexbear servers aren’t going to pay for themselves.

fuckingkangaroos,

And Lemmy.ml

homesweethomeMrL,

AI? Pfft. Real manly men who ride bears with no shirt on know how to disrupt elections all by themselves. With their own two oligarchs!

BurningnnTree,

This may be a dumb question, but does China want Trump or Biden to win? Or are they more interested in just amplifying political/social division?

Fedizen,

I’ve only seen references to them dishing out pro trump misinfo, but I expect that’s because its the most expedient way to amplify division and it hedges against a trump victory by appealing to his narcissism

Ragnarok314159,

America under Trump will all but collapse, which opens up a massive void that China will be happy to fill.

Trump will destroy America for a few strokes of his ego.

ILikeBoobies, (edited )

In Canada they are more interested in amplifying division

They want minority governments so we are slower to react

For the US I imagine that is having a different Senate or House/Executive

skulblaka,
@skulblaka@startrek.website avatar

Every foreign adversary wants Trump to win because it’s obvious to everyone in the world that he’s going to cause the collapse of America. When America keels over, a power vacuum opens up.

go_go_gadget,

When America keels over, a power vacuum opens up.

As an American, yes please. I’m tired of all my tax payer dollars going to defense spending. Meanwhile China managed to build an entire high speed rail network.

jeremyparker,

Trump took a LOT of money in gifts from China while in office so I would guess they like him

Edit to add source. There are lots more articles, this is far from the only one

nytimes.com/…/trump-hotels-foreign-business-repor…

TheDemonBuer,
@TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world avatar

There are a lot of Americans who think they understand China really well, but I’m not sure they do.

Gullible,

“Nation seeks to weaken rival” isn’t very difficult to process. Or are you referring to people with a romanticized view of China?

TheDemonBuer,
@TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world avatar

Rival for what? Should we all just assume that every country is in a competition for global supremacy, that China must necessarily be trying to usurp the US as the dominant global superpower. I think it’s entirely possible that China’s ultimate goal isn’t world domination. I don’t claim to know what their ultimate goal is, but that’s my point: a lot of other Americans do claim to know.

Gullible,

Democracy tends to spread as an idea. Freedom feels good and just so happens to, for the most part, bring nations socially, and economically, closer to the US. So to directly answer your question: rival political structure, rival military, rival economy, rival social structure, etc… I promised myself I wouldn’t engage in long winded political discussions on lemmy so I’ll cut it off there.

honey_im_meat_grinding,

Freedom feels good and just so happens to, for the most part bring nations socially

This part I’d agree with

and economically, closer to the US

This part, much less so. The US has a pretty bad history of overthrowing democratically elected leaders and replacing them with US business friendly politicians, whether through hijacking the legal process as with delaying President Lula, or by backing a coup as with Pinochet.

Given the context of this conversation, I should probably note that I don’t support China taking over Taiwan, or meddling with our elections to sow instability either. I’m just challenging the point that the US is friendly to democracy - which has also had bad influence on European democracy (where I am).

Gullible,

I really can’t say that I care enough to flit through my memories of my 101s but the soft political pressure exerted by democracy is powerful.

a chart displaying how frequently the US interacts with a nation.

a history of US military and political actions in other nations

fuckingkangaroos,

Many countries where the US has exerted serious military power like Japan, Germany, and South Korea are now some of the strongest democracies in the world.

eskimofry,

It’s not so straightforward like that. Many countries like Afganistan, Iraq, Vietnam are still reeling from Direct American meddling. I could sit here and type several chapters if I also talked about the indirect meddling.

norbert,
norbert avatar

I think it's safest to assume that the other large superpower investing in basically everything, that has stated its goal of hegemony, is working towards that goal.

Or we could just say "Nah they probably don't want worldwide influence and power as the U.S.s wanes." like naive kids that don't understand realpolitik.

Interesting side note: I actually went to a big Chinese-themed lantern festival last night that I'm sure was at least partially underwritten by China.

TheDemonBuer,
@TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world avatar

China has a stated goal of global hegemony? What kind of hegemony? Cultural, ethnic, political? Is that also the stated goal of the US? Because, if so, I as an American do not support that, especially if hegemony is to be achieved through force.

norbert,
norbert avatar

Ask Taiwan, eastern Russia, and the entire continent of Africa what kind of hegemony.

I never said the U.S. isn't a hegemony, just that China has those same goals and to assume altruism is naive at best.

TheDemonBuer,
@TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world avatar

Who said anything about altruism? I don’t think altruism or hegemony are the only two possibilities, as though every country must be either a master or a slave. A country can pursue its own interests, provide for its people, defend its borders and sovereignty without necessarily also pursuing global dominance.

norbert,
norbert avatar

A country can pursue its own interests, provide for its people, defend its borders and sovereignty without necessarily also pursuing global dominance.

Hypothetically? Sure.

Let me ask you a question, do you think China does or doesn't want to be a Superpower?

Be honest with yourself and there's your answer to their motivations.

Ultragigagigantic,
@Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world avatar

“The Chinese oligarchs are taking over!” - US oligarchs probably

HeadfullofSoup,

China and russia and probably anyone that can will because at least half of the US are dumb af and if the US if fighting between them then they can do everything they want elsewhere and if a already corrupt puppet like trump get elected? Bonus

jaschen,

We saw that shit here in Taiwan. Fake AI content that was circulating Line messenger and TikTok.

rayyy,

TikTok

TikTok seems so innocent but people do not understand how nefariously TikTok can be used. Most folks are are defenseless targets because they are not attuned to how psyops has been successfully used against them already.

jeremyparker,

So like uh I’m not trying to out myself as a boomer but how do they use Tiktok nefariously? I used it for about 5 minutes once, the whole experience was just not for me. Do they just take people’s videos and put captions on them?

SlothMama,

No, opinion and ideas are insulated and picked by algorithms so that, out of the available content, they also feed you videos about specific topics and agendas, and suppress slightly the ideas and agendas they aren’t trying to push.

It’s subtle, but you don’t need to fool an individual quickly, you only need to incrementally modify opinions on a grand scale. People won’t notice, and see these as organic and natural shifts in the ideas and opinions of their peers.

jaschen,

It’s super targeted. I really wish they would ban it here like they are trying in the US.

TWeaK,

It’s super targeted.

Exactly, and that’s also why it’s so effective. You can say whatever lies you like if you only say them to the people who will lap it up, there’s and no chance for anyone else to correct them as they don’t even hear the lie.

Corkyskog,

I honestly don’t see how it’s worse than say YouTube, for example. Instead of spoonfeeding conspiracy shit to everyone, it only ends up with the tiny pool who wants it. Youtube on the other hand pushes right wing BS to me every third recommendation.

Sir_Kevin,
@Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Agreed. I could argue that facebook is even more targetted as well. I never understood why tiktok gets so much more hate than the rest.

Corkyskog,

This is unrelated to the actual topic, but the tiktok ads can be kind of ferocious. I like to turn it into a game of how quick I can swipe through ads off less than a second of image recognition before skipping real content… I call it the tiktok tax. There is a lot of reasons to hate tiktok, but they are never what people focus on lol.

Ragnarok314159,

Same. I use YouTube for fix-it and hobby videos, occasionally a game review. I get all sorts of right wing bullshit videos suggested to me. The right is spending a lot of money to steer people that way.

jkrtn,

I wish YouTube were forced to stop that shit also. Let’s throw Facebook in there too.

1bluepixel,
@1bluepixel@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    Bernie_Sandals,
    @Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s a lot harder to add context with only 60 seconds of video. Stripping context is one of the easiest ways to flip a narrative. There are things unique to the TikTok format that are uniquely dangerous.

    jaemo,

    TikTok seems so innocent

    Not since MySpace has any social media “seemed” innocent. If someone thinks that the inception and ongoing existence of these this is out of some weird inbuilt altruism on the part of tech billionaires I’d like to ask them to donate their brain to science after they die so that we might unravel this unsettlingly vast incongruity.

    xnx,

    If only we had similar ways to fight it similar to the g0v movement in Taiwan so people can check whether something is fake through a repository of reported “news”

    highduc,

    I can see that making sense for Taiwan, but how could they use it in the US?

    Most people would be afraid of pro Trump propaganda, right? But Trump is even more anti China than Biden is, so that doesn’t even make sense.

    Shiggles,

    Realistically, while Trump might be more outwardly “anti-china”, he’s also anti-america, so it’s a net gain for them.

    highduc,

    But he’s not just outwardly anti China, he is actually anti China - judging by actions not words! - the tariffs he imposed and the trade war he started.

    norbert,
    norbert avatar

    The tariffs that U.S. citizens pay while the rest of the world doesn't? I'm not sure that hurts China in the longterm.

    pennomi,

    It does, because the US is moving much of its manufacturing away from China. That’s a shit ton of lost revenue.

    norbert,
    norbert avatar

    The rest of the world is quickly stepping into the 21st century and China is ready to manufacture whatever they need.

    See also: the massive amounts of capital China is pouring into renewable energy investments in Africa. While U.S. oil companies drag their feet and blow smoke about how bad solar/wind is.

    UsernameHere,

    Trump wants to pull the US out of NATO and weaken our alliance with our allies like he did in his first term.

    Trump also hamstrung our government so they got even less done than normal.

    Not to mention Trump would abandon Ukraine allowing Russia to steamroll them.

    These are just a few of the benefits they get from Trump. There are many more.

    Theprogressivist,
    @Theprogressivist@lemmy.world avatar

    Yep. And all you have to do is stroke his ego, and he will give you the US.

    FuglyDuck,
    @FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

    china is playing the long game here.

    Trump is most likely to completely destabilize the US, at which point there goes any US support for Taiwan. Which probably means they can roll Taiwan without foreign interference.

    Trump’s economic stances are fucking stupid and don’t hurt China at all.

    FuglyDuck,
    @FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

    “We know because we helped them build the ai.”

    jaybone,

    “Well, you see, it all started while we were meeting to discuss how to remove the tiananmen square massacre from our search results…”

    FuglyDuck, (edited )
    @FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

    I mean, you’ve all heard of the tank man massacre?

    But have you heard of the rubber ducky man massacre?

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c03201f8-4cc1-4d61-8768-58915d6c53b8.jpeg

    (Just a little quick backstory, that was a photoshop to get past the censorship in China.)

    sirico,
    @sirico@feddit.uk avatar

    That was a spicy ticket to close

    Assman,
    @Assman@sh.itjust.works avatar

    LGTM ✅

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