This is how AI can influence elections – Emil Hellerud: “Very dangerous”

The United States is in the midst of a presidential election campaign and interest is high throughout the world.
A campaign like this is a perfect breeding ground for fake facts and misinformation.
– When you start building perceptions of reality on visual impressions that have not actually happened – then it becomes very dangerous, says Emil Hellerud, tech reporter at TV4.

The US election is only weeks away and it is even between the candidates in public opinion. Both sides are of course doing their best to convince the voters. Unfortunately, some fake pictures also appear in the fight for the favor of the voters.

“Very dangerous”

Emil Hellerud, tech reporter at TV4, shows some examples of false images created with the help of artificial intelligence, AI.

– Here we have an AI-faked image that shows Donald Trump together with a lot of potential, black voters and you must then show that he is popular in this voter group. But these pictures are fake, they don’t really exist.

He points to two risks with AI-created material. In part, it applies to videos where people allegedly say something they did not say. That kind of material is easier to question. Images are more treacherous, as they can be mass-produced and spread widely and it is difficult to fact-check every single one.

– When you start building perceptions of reality on visual impressions that haven’t actually happened, and when you start using it as genre images – then it becomes very dangerous, says Emil Hellerud in Nyhetsmorgon.

Risk of wide spread

He gives an example that Donald Trump himself posted on X. It is a picture of a woman who looks like Kamala Harris from behind, in front of a sea of ​​people and a Soviet flag.

– This is nothing that is true and he would probably think that it is a joke. But it’s not labeled as a joke, it’s labeled just as a picture he posts associating Kamala Harris as a communist.

You don’t see the person’s face, but Emil Hellerud believes that such images risk having a big effect anyway.

– If you mass-produce this type of message, it sets a narrative, a story that may not be rooted in reality. We humans are very vulnerable to what is known as the repetition effect, a classic propaganda tool. If you repeat something enough times, you begin to associate it in your head with being this way. And that becomes very problematic.