What I’m Reading - 2/18/24
Greetings from Sacramento! I’m here for the weekend visiting a friend before returning to San Francisco for my final week before returning to DC. I am trying hard not to work this weekend as I’ve been going pretty hard since starting the new job. However, I ended up spending some time digging deeper into how companies handle AI and election/political content.
That’s because it was a big week on the tech and elections front as 20 of the leading technology companies came together in Munich to announce a new AI elections accord to combat deep fakes in elections. Twenty companies signed and one of the commitments is: “Providing transparency to the public regarding how we address Deceptive AI Election Content—for instance, by publishing the policies that explain how we will address such content, providing updates on provenance research, or informing the public about other actions taken in line with these commitments.”
To that end, here are those who signed and have put out additional information about how they are handling election-related content. As a reminder, my full database of election announcements over the years is here, and I’ll continue to update this (if I missed anything, let me know!):
Anthropic: Preparing for global elections in 2024
ElevenLabs: How ElevenLabs is Preparing for Elections in 2024
Google: Working together to address AI risks and opportunities at MSC
McAfee: This Election Season, Be on the Lookout for AI-generated Fake News
Microsoft: Meeting the moment: combating AI deepfakes in elections through today’s new tech accord
On top of that, we had TikTok and Google announce plans in Europe for the June EU elections.
If you would allow me a small work plug, let me know if anyone needs lists of candidates worldwide. It’s another one of those seemingly simple lists that are quite complicated to build. You can respond to this email if you want to get in touch.
I hope you have a lovely Sunday!
Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.
What I’m Reading
Washington Post: Biden campaign joins TikTok in an effort to reach younger voters
The Atlantic: The Moneyball Theory of Presidential Social Media
Politico: British politicians have ditched TikTok. Nigel Farage is moving in
Washington Post: Opinion | Kara Swisher: The day Silicon Valley rode Trump’s escalator to nowhere
Wired: Kara Swisher Is Sick of Tech People, So She Wrote a Book About Them
Washington Post: China-based propaganda accounts flourish on X as others try to curb them
OpenAI: Disrupting malicious uses of AI by state-affiliated threat actors
Sentinel One: China’s Cyber Revenge | Why the PRC Fails to Back Its Claims of Western Espionage
Washington Post: Senate poised to pass biggest piece of tech regulation in decades
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Elections Canada launches online disinformation tool to prepare voters for next federal election
DFR Lab: US celebrities unwittingly recruited to undermine Moldova’s president
Al Jazeera: How AI is resurrecting dead Indian politicians as election looms
BBC: Electoral bonds: India's Supreme Court scraps anonymous election funding
Politico: Pakistan’s Imran Khan uses AI to make victory speech from jail
Politico: The EU’s online content rulebook isn’t ready for primetime
Economist: France uncovers a vast Russian disinformation campaign in Europe
All Tech is Human: Digital Disruption and the Role of Social Media in Argentina’s Election
Council on Foreign Relations: AI in Context: Indonesian Elections Challenge GenAI Policies
Politico Tech Podcast: AI in elections? A former Facebook exec says it's time to "panic responsibly"
Federalist Society Podcast: Explainer Episode 63 - Super Elections Year
New Yorker: Avoiding the Disinformation Trap
Wall Street Journal: New Era of AI Deepfakes Complicates 2024 Elections
Axios: AI legislation spikes across U.S. states to combat deepfakes
Wired: OpenAI’s Sora Turns AI Prompts Into Photorealistic Videos
Microsoft: Advancing AI responsibly
Center for American Progress: Generative AI Should Be Developed and Deployed Responsibly at Every Level for Everyone
Axios: New AI polyglot launched to help fill massive language gap in field
Coin Telegraph: Security researchers unveil deepfake AI audio attack that hijacks live conversations
Wired: Bluesky CEO Jay Graber Says She Won’t ‘Enshittify the Network With Ads’
The Information: Meta Cuts Funding for Fact-Checking on WhatsApp as Elections Loom
NYU: Digital Risks to the 2024 Elections: Safeguarding Democracy in the Era of Disinformation
American Political Science Review: How Experiments Help Campaigns Persuade Voters: Evidence from a Large Archive of Campaigns’ Own Experiments
Academic Paper: What We Know About Using Non-Engagement Signals in Content Ranking
Munich Security Conference: Munich Security Report 2024
Who Targets Me: The Academics Issue
Meta: Adversarial Threat Report: Countering the Surveillance-for-Hire Industry & Influence Operations
Rolling Stone: The Super Bowl's Other Big Winners... Were the Creators?
Samidh Chakrabarti and Dave Willner: ChatGPT - Content Policy Compiler
Oversight Board: Oversight Board Upholds Meta’s Decision in Weapons Post Linked to Sudan’s Conflict Case
Information is Beautiful: All Facebook/Meta Oversight Board Decisions — Information is Beautiful
Harvard Business Review: Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome
Jimmy Kimmel: Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera & Ryan Gosling Help Jimmy Kimmel Get to the Oscars
TIME: Why We’re More Exhausted Than Ever
Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.