This appeared last week…
Audio deepfakes ‘the most effective we’ve seen so far’, says Microsoft
Tom McIlroy Canberra Bureau Chief
Feb 2, 2025 – 2.19pm
Deepfake audio content could be used to mislead voters and disrupt the federal election campaign, global technology giant Microsoft has warned, highlighting the risk to polls around the country.
Visiting Australia ahead of the poll – due on or before May 17 – Microsoft’s Democracy Forward initiative boss Ginny Badanes said manipulated audio content and deepfake videos designed to sound like a political candidate’s real voice could spread quickly on social media.
Ms Badanes said the company’s research into threats against recent US elections found foreign influence operations were focused on so-called “down-ballot” races, at the state and local government levels.
China, Russia and Iran are among the global leaders in electoral interference, often hacking accounts and spreading content to mislead voters.
The warning follows an Australian Electoral Commission assessment last month that found foreign interference was “a more prolific threat than ever before” as a wide range of individuals and groups were engaging in covert campaigns.
“Audio deepfakes are the thing people should be most focused on and interested in because they’re the most effective that we’ve seen so far,” Ms Badanes told The Australian Financial Review.
“The technology is in the best place, and access to that technology seems to be pretty easy for these actors. It’s also the hardest to detect. There aren’t as many signals to look at from a detection perspective.”
She said Australia would benefit from going to the polls after billions of people voted in elections around the world in 2024.
“We got to see how nation-state actors were behaving. We got to see how they were using AI, if they were using AI, and a lot of those lessons can carry over and inform, to a certain extent, how Australia is going to approach this election,” she said.
In a threat assessment published in January, the AEC said while attempts to interfere in Australia’s democratic processes were common, successful interference was not.
“Our democracy remains robust, our parliaments remain sovereign, and our elections remain free and fair.”
Campaigns in marginal electorates could see interference and hacking attempts, including targeting the personal email accounts of candidates and party officials.
In 2024, foreign operatives targeted Republican candidates and members of Congress who had advocated anti-China policies, sometimes parroting antisemitic messages, spreading baseless corruption accusations and promoting rival candidates.
Ms Badanes said elections in smaller countries such as Moldova and Romania had been targeted and similar activities in Australia were possible.
Iran has used fake videos and “pink slime sites” – websites purporting to provide local news but actually used to spread misinformation.
“We saw Iran set up 12 or more local news sites, likely created with or supported by AI. We think it’s likely that they were able to create more content, whitewash existing content into new articles,” she said.
“And these fake local news sites were meant to mislead people about news and stories and propaganda under the pretence that it was a trusted new site within the US.”
Crossbenchers in federal parliament have called for the Albanese government to take action on artificial intelligence threats, including deepfake video content.
Greens senator David Shoebridge last week co-operated with the ABC to produce a bogus video of him calling for cannabis to be legalised.
Independent David Pocock commissioned deepfake videos of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton last year. He has flagged he will raise the issue of AI threats when parliament begins its first sitting fortnight for the year on Tuesday.
Here is the link:
With our election coming in the next 3 months we may get early experience of how badly things can play out!
Watch this space!
David,
1 comment:
Agree David, it is all getting a bit silly and I cannot see it ending well. There is a sickness spreading.
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