GenAI will test major 2024 national elections

Significance

Notable poll-bound countries include the United States, India, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Egypt and South Africa, and possibly the United Kingdom. Textual and audio-visual mis/disinformation created using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools, and circulated on social media and other online platforms, will negatively affect elections and public debate in many of these countries.

Impacts

• The use of synthetic content will proliferate but the regulatory response will lag worldwide.
• There is a growing risk of protests against election results as online traffic rises but the quality of the information environment falls.
• Public consensus on important policies such as climate mitigation and immigration will become harder to reach due to misinformation.