Russia, Iran Overcome Language Barriers To Spread Disinformation To Voters, Says Federal Agency: AI Improving, Not Revolutionizing Foreign Election Interference

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence or ODNI has reported that AI is being used to improve, not revolutionize, foreign influence operations targeting the 2024 U.S. elections.

What Happened: In a statement on Monday, ODNI said that AI is viewed as a malign influence accelerant rather than a revolutionary tool in the hands of foreign operatives.

“The risk to U.S. 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,” ODNI said.

Foreign operatives, particularly from Russia and Iran, are leveraging AI to overcome language barriers and disseminate disinformation to U.S. voters.

For instance, Iran has used AI to generate Spanish content on immigration, a divisive U.S. political issue. Russia, on the other hand, has produced the most AI-related content concerning the U.S. election.

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This is consistent with its efforts to support former President Donald Trump and denigrate Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, noted CNN.

China is also using AI to amplify divisive U.S. political issues, but not specifically to influence election outcomes, according to the new US intelligence assessment.

“For example, pro-China online actors this year have used AI-generated news anchors and inauthentic social media accounts with AI-generated profile pictures to sow divisions on issues such as drug use, immigration, and abortion,” ODNI stated.

Why It Matters: Previously it was reported that Russian operatives allegedly staged a video falsely claiming that Harris paralyzed a young girl in a hit-and-run accident in 2011.

Last month, the Trump campaign blamed “foreign sources hostile to the U.S.” for a cyberattack. This was followed by President Joe Biden accusing Russia of seeking to interfere with the 2024 election.

Earlier this month, U.S. intelligence agencies revealed that Iran attempted to share hacked information from the Trump campaign with the Biden campaign.

Image via Unsplash

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.