IANS
New Delhi
With major elections taking place around the world this year, particularly in India, South Korea and the US, a Microsoft Threat Analysis team has warned that China will create and amplify AI-generated content to benefit its interests.
Despite the chances of such content in affecting election results remaining low, China’s increasing experimentation in augmenting memes, videos, and audio will likely continue – and may prove more effective down the line.
According to the tech giant, China is using fake social media accounts to poll voters on what divides them most to sow division and possibly influence the outcome of the US presidential election in its favour.
The year is lined up with key elections. While a fierce rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is underway in the US presidential elections, India is set to conduct the world’s largest democratic exercise between April and June. The year has already seen key elections in Taiwan and Pakistan. South Korea too is set to have its parliamentary elections on April 10.
Microsoft has raised concerns about China’s potential use of artificial intelligence (AI) to disrupt upcoming elections in the United States, South Korea, and India. According to a report from Microsoft’s threat intelligence team, Chinese state-backed cyber groups, with some participation from North Korea, are expected to target these high-profile elections in 2024. The report highlighted that China might use AI-generated content on social media to favor their interests in these elections.
The tech giant pointed out that while the influence of AI-generated content on public opinion has been minimal so far, China’s growing experiments with AI to create memes, videos, and audio could become more impactful over time. Microsoft cited the Taiwan presidential election in January as an example, where a Beijing-supported group known as Storm 1376 used AI to produce misleading content, including a fake audio endorsement and negative memes about certain candidates.
“China has also increased its use of AI-generated content to further its goals around the world. North Korea has increased its cryptocurrency heists and supply chain attacks to fund and further its military goals and intelligence collection. It has also begun to use AI to make its operations more effective and efficient,” the company said in a
blog post.
Deceptive social media accounts by Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-affiliated actors have already started to pose contentious questions on controversial US domestic issues to better understand the key issues that divide US voters.
“This could be to gather intelligence and precision on key voting demographics ahead of the US presidential election,” the company warned.
China’s geopolitical priorities remain unchanged but it has doubled down on its targets and increased the sophistication of its influence operations (IO) attacks.
The Taiwanese presidential election in January this year also saw a surge in the use of AI-generated content by China-affiliated cyber criminals.
“This was the first time that Microsoft Threat Intelligence has witnessed a nation-state actor using AI content in attempts to influence a foreign election,” said the team.
For years, China along with countries like North Korea, Russia, and Iran has been accused of running influence operations in the US and other countries to influence voter’s behaviour. The influence operations have often involved disinformation campaigns.
