EXCLUSIVE: China’s extensive artificial intelligence (AI) operations could play a concerning role in the 2024 election cycle, Senator Pete Ricketts warned Thursday.
“There is absolutely a possibility that they could do this for the 2024 election, and that is what we have to be on our guard for. [for]“, Ricketts told Fox News Digital in an interview in his Senate office.
During a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearing earlier this month, Ricketts referenced China and its use of AI technology to create “deepfakes,” which are videos and fabricated images that may resemble real people and real events. A report released earlier this year by a US-based research firm claimed that a “pro-China spam operation” was using AI deepfake technology to create videos of fake news anchors reciting propaganda. from Beijing. These videos were posted on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, according to the report. Meanwhile, China has its own regulations limiting the reach of deepfakes within its borders.
Sen. Pete Ricketts told Fox News Digital he was concerned about reports of pro-China groups using deepfake AI technology. (Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Ricketts compared the effort to the vast propaganda network of the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th century.
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“I think there’s a big parallel here between what the Soviet Union did in the Cold War, where they spent ten times more than us on this kind of propaganda, and what the CCP is doing right now. where they’re overspending us ten to one, and now they’re trying to leverage that dollar advantage with the technology advantage of using AI,” he said.
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Ricketts revealed that he himself had been in contact with artificial intelligence experts at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and other places “to come up with strategies [on] what we can do.”
“One of the main things we need to do, really, is educate our own citizens about how they need to look at the media now and think critically about it,” the senator said. “Because chances are it’s completely made up, it’s completely wrong. Even if you see someone, an image of someone you think you know, it could be created by a computer program. “
This illustrative photo taken on January 30, 2023 shows a phone screen displaying a statement from the head of security policy at META with a fake video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calling on his soldiers to lay down their arms shown in the background, in Washington, DC. (OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP)
He suggested the US government could work with colleges and universities researching AI technology on a “model” to teach people to be aware of deepfakes.
“One of the things that we can do, as a federal government, is to think, well, what are the things that we want to do when we say, ‘Okay, we have to teach people – think in a way review, “can we come up with some ideas of what that means? Maybe create a model or something that we can share with universities and they can adapt,” Ricketts said.
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China has increased its investment in AI in recent years. (Photo: Chinese President Xi Jinping) (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
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He was wary of the suggestion that the federal government could create its own AI office to educate people, citing bloated bureaucracy, but called on his colleagues to stay “on topic” and learn as much as possible about AI. rapidly developing technology.
“I’m always very careful about creating more government bureaucracy, so I’m not sure we want to run around and do that. There’s probably places where we can fix that already,” Ricketts said. “But I think it’s partly for my colleagues and for me to be informed about it and about the capabilities. And as I said, it’s evolving very quickly, so we have to stay on topic. .”
