Just before the New Hampshire primary, some voters received a fake robocall, purportedly from President Joe Biden, spreading election misinformation.
For the news media, this was a huge story, confirming their obsession with the dangers of “misinformation” and their call for action by Big Government, Big Tech, and Big Media to better police and quash misinformation, especially in this day of artificial intelligence.
Democrats blasted the robocall as “a form of ‘deepfake disinformation designed to harm Joe Biden, suppress votes, and damage our democracy.’”
Robert Weissman of the left-wing Public Citizen called for federal regulations policing AI disinformation. “The New Hampshire robocall underscores the need for swift action,” the Hill quoted him as saying. “The political deepfake era is here and regulators are either going to step up or we’re going to descend into election chaos.”
Another activist said AI disinformation was an “‘ecosystem-wide problem’ that will require action by government, political campaigns, and private companies to help mitigate the threats,” as the Hill summarized it.
One “disinformation” scholar reacted with a long post suggesting that the policing should be done by the “trust and safety teams” at Big Tech companies.
USA Today, likewise, wrote: “Fake Biden robocall prompts state probe, ratchets up concerns about AI in 2024 election.”
To address these concerns, the paper touted a bill proposed by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and efforts by Google’s and Facebook’s parent companies to police abuse of AI that could be biased or misleading.
NPR similarly called on Big Tech and Big Government to address the problem.
All of these arguments suggested that shadowy rogue players would be the perpetrators and that Big Tech, Big Media, and Big Government would be the good cops.
Since then, the events that have transpired have confirmed the backwardness of the initial media reaction.
For starters, the call was not “designed to harm Joe Biden, suppress votes, and damage our democracy,” as New Hampshire Democrats had alleged. It was, according to the perpetrator, something of a lobbying effort by a Democratic consultant who wants more anti-disinformation regulation, according to all media accounts.
Secondly, Google (one of those players that is supposed to police AI misinformation) launched its AI chatbot Gemini, which immediately proved to be a pernicious purveyor of politically inflected “misinformation.”
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As I wrote before Gemini launched and before we learned who was behind those New Hampshire robocalls: “A world that relies upon electronic record keeping that stores those records on the internet is a world where the powerful can rewrite history. So we hope NPR will forgive us if we don’t expect tech giants and governments to be the bulwarks against revisionist AI disinformation.”
Asking Google or the FBI to protect us from disinformation is like asking foxes to protect your hens.