2024 could be one of the most critical years in American history. As the founder of an AI company, I must warn that this should not be because of AI. As I say in my new book, The Coming Wave: Technology, Electricity, and the Biggest Dilemma of the 21st Century, all technology is political. From the printing press to modern weapons, from satellite communications to databases, nations and technologies are inextricably linked.
While technology may not have a clear political purpose, it is a form of power. From the earliest tools to today’s world of social media and generative artificial intelligence, it has major social and political consequences.
Throughout history, few technologists have actually tackled this problem. They only really woke up long after a series of unintended consequences spilled over into society (such as the role social media played in the recent election). Now, we are facing a wave of transformative technology led by artificial intelligence. It will have huge implications, including the future of the nation-state concept, but first, we will feel the effects of AI in the next election. We need to be one step ahead. AI is advancing rapidly—and as we approach a crucial presidential election, we are ill-prepared for the impact of this new wave.
I worry about AI disrupting the information space with deepfakes and targeted adaptive misinformation that can emotionally manipulate and convince even savvy voters and consumers. What happens when everyone has the ability to create and distribute material with incredible realism?From a politician who speaks several local Indian dialects to a series of Doctored Videos of Members of Congress In the United States, the first real-life examples have emerged.And these examples happen forward The ability to generate near-perfect deepfakes—whether text, images, video, or audio—becomes as simple as writing a query into Google.
Imagine that three days before an election, a video of a presidential candidate using a racist slur circulates on social media. The campaign press office strenuously denied this, but everyone knew what they saw. Anger boiled across the country. Opinion polls have fallen sharply. The swing state suddenly turned to the opponent, and to everyone’s surprise, the opponent won. A new government takes over. But the video was a deepfake, a technique so sophisticated that even the best fake-detection neural networks couldn’t identify it. Grainy, factual videos or recordings of politicians defaming voting blocs can be engaging and convincing. However, trusting our eyes and ears is no longer possible.
Over the next few years, these technologies will have a wider impact, fundamentally reshaping the balance of power, propping up some companies and countries while radically disrupting others, and reshaping labor markets and security infrastructures. But these dramatic changes were preceded by a deluge of disinformation surrounding the election. The problem here isn’t extremes, but subtle, nuanced, highly believable scenarios that are exaggerated and distorted. Moreover, despite the undoubted benefits of generative AI tools, they could be weaponized by hostile actors, including rogue states, introducing new hacking capabilities and systemic vulnerabilities into the heart of the political process.
In the face of these threats, we need to shore up our country and protect our society. But first, we must maintain the electoral process from now on. Free and fair elections are the foundation of American society, and next year’s election will be the first in the era of artificial intelligence. We’ve already seen signs of AI’s possible impact on democracy, deliberately generating disinformation to distort outcomes. This is happening on American soil, and it’s already affecting results. In response, we must ensure that the integrity of the system is maintained, and that means explicitly and immediately banning the use of artificial intelligence and chatbots in elections. From 2024 onwards, these systems must be kept away from elections. No if or but. Democratic processes are too precious and too fragile for a technology as novel and powerful as artificial intelligence.
In recent months, as the artificial intelligence wave has begun to arrive, calls for regulation have grown louder from all sides, including tech companies themselves. Everyone agrees: Regulating AI is critical. But so far, there hasn’t been enough clarity or consensus on where and how to start. Instead, there is a quagmire of common ideas and agendas. It’s one thing to call for regulation, quite another to get into the details. However, here is a simple, clear and undisputed case for immediate action. It is critical that those of us who study this technology articulate what needs to be done next: banning the use of AI in elections.
Legislating AI-driven campaigning would be a concrete step toward ameliorating the spiraling political fallout from the coming wave. This shouldn’t be the last time.
Mustafa Suleyman is the co-founder and CEO of Inflection AI. In 2010, he co-founded DeepMind, which was acquired by Google.he is coming wave.
The opinions expressed in Fortune review articles are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and beliefs of: wealth.
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