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”.
“We know because we helped them build the ai.”
“Well, you see, it all started while we were meeting to discuss how to remove the tiananmen square massacre from our search results…”
I mean, you’ve all heard of the tank man massacre?
But have you heard of the rubber ducky man massacre?
(Just a little quick backstory, that was a photoshop to get past the censorship in China.)
We saw that shit here in Taiwan. Fake AI content that was circulating Line messenger and TikTok.
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.
It’s super targeted. I really wish they would ban it here like they are trying in the US.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I wish YouTube were forced to stop that shit also. Let’s throw Facebook in there too.
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.
deleted by creator
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.
Hexbear servers aren’t going to pay for themselves.
And Lemmy.ml
Not defending the CCP, but I would submit that every country is using AI to undermine other nations including their own.
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.
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.
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.
“The Chinese oligarchs are taking over!” - US oligarchs probably
Billionaires will completely control elections with or without AI.
There are a lot of Americans who think they understand China really well, but I’m not sure they do.
“Nation seeks to weaken rival” isn’t very difficult to process. Or are you referring to people with a romanticized view of China?
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.
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.
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!
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.
Realistically, while Trump might be more outwardly “anti-china”, he’s also anti-america, so it’s a net gain for them.
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.
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.
