The swing state is running a series of tests using AI as it braces for potential scams and conspiracy theories in the presidential election.
JOHN SAKELLARIADIS
POLITICO
Arizona’s top elections official has a novel plan to prevent artificial intelligence from supercharging election hoaxes in 2024: Test the technology on himself first.
After his key swing state became a magnet for election fraud conspiracy theories in the 2020 presidential election, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is leading a series of exercises to prepare the Grand Canyon State for a range of likely threats to next year’s vote, foremost among them the use of open access AI tools to amplify disinformation.
Arizona held the first such simulation last weekend, a two-day exercise involving roughly 200 stakeholders from across the state and a handful from the federal government. In it, Fontes tried to fool participants by presenting them with AI-generated audio and video of key officials — including Fontes himself — spinning falsehoods.
“It was the first [Election Day simulation] that included artificial intelligence as a focus point,” Fontes, a Democrat, said in an interview. And unless you knew him or his staff well enough to ferret out the half-truths told in the clips, he said, the AI-powered fakes “wouldn’t necessarily be non-believable.” The fake of Fontes, for example, offered false but trivial facts about himself, like that he had a son who plays ice hockey.
