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(And, as I reported earlier this year, generative AI has already begun shaking up the election after a robocall posing as Joe Biden dissuaded New Hampshire primary attendees from voting.)
Using chatbots from OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta, Vittoria created FOIA requests targeting disputed states. Things got a little strange when Microsoft’s Copilot randomly generated a request requesting information related to voter fraud during the 2020 election, even without the message specifying the year.
I feel so bad for these poll workers. In states like Arizona, some election offices look more like military bases, surrounded by gates guarded by security guards, David wrote in a new story for WIRED this morning. This is the result of years of threats toward election officials, in large part due to the massive amounts of misinformation and disinformation being spread. “As a result,” David writes, “election officials they have resigned en masse. The loss of institutional knowledge, added to a Endless wave of misinformation and disinformation.“It has made work unsustainable.”
We are already inundated with AI-generated content, like fake product ads on social media. Now imagine trying to sort through all that junk while you’re on a deadline and under threat. It’s exhausting and it’s just the beginning of what the next seven months will bring.
The chat room
If you’re subscribed to this newsletter, you’ve probably been following our coverage of how Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is using social media to reach voters. The campaign has dipped even further.
Biden recently toured many of the battleground states he will need to win to defeat Trump. In some states, such as Pennsylvania, he held rallies; In other states, he did not. But what did all of his stops have in common? They were all backdrops for his campaign’s social media feeds. In Michigan, for example, Biden didn’t even hold a rally and instead appeared in a TikTok video. with a local pastor and his son.
The Biden campaign is likely to reach more voters with that TikTok video than with a rally. The content allows the team to show tender moments between the president and voters, interactions that have made it go viral in the past. But they also avoid slightly less scripted interactions and help shield Biden from questions about his age, while staffers post videos that make him look younger and more energetic. As we discussed last week regarding influencers, this strategy gives the campaign more control over the narrative.
What do you think? Leave a comment below or email me at mail@wired.com.
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Wired readings
- Elon Musk is supporting far-right activists in Brazil, defying court order: My colleague Vittoria Elliott reports that The company would always comply with local law. . Some Brazilian activists say these accounts have been pushing misinformation and electoral disinformation for years.
- Groundbreaking Online Privacy Proposal Comes to Congress: For the past few years, President Biden has promised to pass data privacy legislation. After being deadlocked for so long, Congress has the best chance to get it done with this new bipartisan proposal.
- The hacking lawsuit looms over the social truth: girls are fighting. William Turton reports that a former executive who helped Truth Social go public is suing the CEO who replaced him for allegedly hacking him in an attempt to take over the company.
They want more? Subscribe now for unlimited access to WIRED.
What else are we reading?
🔗 Arizona Senate race is a battle over the nature of reality: For NY, Olivia Nuzzi demystifies the parallel realities that Democrats and Republicans evoke to describe the US-Mexico border and immigration, and how they could affect the election. (New York Magazine)
🔗 House Democrats Still Using TikTok While Voting No: More than a dozen House Democrats who voted to ban TikTok last month still use the app, despite its toxic reputation on Capitol Hill. (Political)
🔗 I’m still trying to generate an Asian man and a white woman with AI: This series by Mia Sato for The Verge in which generative AI fails to create images of an Asian man and a white woman may not fit neatly into our political category, but it shows how often racist stereotypes influence the results of these models . (The edge)
The download
He WIRED Policy Lab Podcast has officially landed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts!
Starting today, WIRED’s Politics department will report directly to your ears through our program. This week, Leah Feiger, our editor and host, sits down with David and Vittoria to dive even deeper into election denial groups mobilizing their supporters and the threats election workers face this year.
That’s all for today. Thanks again for subscribing. You can contact me at mail@wired.com, instagram, x and Signal at makenakelly.32.