Russia, China and Iran are using artificial intelligence to boost attempts to influence November’s US presidential election.
That is the view of the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in an assessment that has just been released.
“Generative AI is helping to improve and accelerate aspects of foreign influence operations but thus far the IC (Intelligence Community) has not seen it revolutionise such operations,” the assessment reads.
“The risk to US elections from foreign AI-generated content depends on the ability of foreign actors to overcome restrictions built into many AI tools and remain undetected, develop their own sophisticated models and strategically target and disseminate such content,” the ODNI says.
Russia, Iran and China are identified as the top three ‘actors by the ODNI who says their activities are increasing as the election draws closer.
It says Russia generated the most AI election content across text, images, audio, and video as they try to boost former US President Donald Trump’s campaign while denigrating Kamala Harris’s Democrats campaign.
“Iranian actors have used AI to help generate social media posts and write inauthentic news articles for websites that claim to be real news sites,” the ODNI says.
“This content, in both English and Spanish, targeted US voters across the political spectrum on polarizing issues, such as the Israel-Gaza conflict and on the presidential candidates.”
It says China is using AI to shape global views and amplify divisive US political issues but without any specific operations to influence the US election.
Issues like the Israel-Gaza conflict, the official said. US officials believe Tehran is trying to undercut former US President Donald Trump’s candidacy.
Russia has generated the most AI content related to the US election of any foreign power, according to the ODNI official. The AI-laced content — videos, photos, text and audio — have been consistent with Moscow’s efforts to boost Trump’s candidacy and denigrate Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, the official said.
China, meanwhile, is using AI “to amplify divisive US political issues,” but not to try to shape specific US election outcomes, the new US intelligence assessment said.
The ODNI also says countries like Russia are creating or manipulating media with less sophisticated means, or using AI to enhance, not create, content.
“For example … Russian influence actors were responsible for staging a video in which a woman claims she was the victim of a hit-and-run car accident by the vice president and altering videos of the vice president’s speeches.”
