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| Jonathan Raa, Leon Neal/Getty Images; BNN |
Microsoft has a plan to use AI to create a “healthy information ecosystem” just in time for the 2024 election.
A February 5 headline from Microsoft’s own site sends the signal: “Here’s how we’re working with journalists to create the newsrooms of the future with AI.” That’s the intended future: The marriage of Big Tech and Big Journalism, with a hybrid offspring coming soon to a screen near you.
Highlighting new “partnerships” with various publications and non-profits, Microsoft tells us, “We are helping these organizations identify and refine the procedures and policies to use AI responsibly in newsgathering and business practices,” adding that the goal is to “identify ways AI can help create efficient business practices and help build sustainable newsrooms for generations to come.”
Here’s the translation from the corporate blather-speak: Microsoft, the richest company in the world, is making its move into journalism, or, more precisely, the journalism business. Journalism, for better or worse, requires journalists, those flesh-and-blood cost centers, whereas the journalism business can get by on whatever it can get away with, AI-wise.
Yet, so far, at least, AI journalism has not been a success. Most obviously, reporters realize that AI could send them down the same automated chute as bobbin turners and hod carriers. So they’ve been calling out AI when it’s gotten too flagrant, as in the recent case of Sports Illustrated. That was a victory for journos, although, of course, soon thereafter, the publication shut down.
Without a doubt, the cost-cutters and spread-sheeters will keep slicing, and at the same time, AI will keep improving, even if it might always have problems in the uncanny valley.
Yet Microsoft charges ahead, unspooling a slew of botwords—“responsible,” “sustainable,” “efficient”—that seem half cyborg. Of course, it’s all a cloak for the woke. Such wokeness should be no surprise, given that AI is being built in places such as Seattle and San Francisco. (This blue-state-origin problem will be endemic until red states figure out how to make their own AI.)
This announcement from Microsoft is not just about the news business in general. It is also about “democratic elections worldwide.” The Microsoft February 5 announcement makes this explicitly clear: --->READ MORE HERE
It’s common knowledge that technology had a role in swaying voters in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
To add an additional layer of complications to the upcoming elections in the U.S., artificial intelligence will likely play a heavier hand.
While AI has been utilized in a multitude of ways in society, there are growing concerns about the use of generative AI during this election season, which may manipulate voters and undermine the elections.
What is generative AI?
Generative AI is artificial intelligence that is capable of generating photos, written information and other data based on models that learn and process raw data as well as through user prompts.
How can generative AI be misused in this year’s election?
For every candidate who is using AI as a cost-saving measure, there are those who can use it for more malicious purposes.
While AI can be used to distinguish and exclude ineligible voters from registries as well as signature matches, it may end up suppressing voters by knowingly or unknowingly removing those who are actually eligible.
Chatbots and algorithms can be used to drum up incorrect information to voters, which can sway them against certain candidates.
In the worst-case scenario, AI can amplify hot-button issues and potentially stir up violence.
How tech and AI companies are failing to protect election integrity
Tech companies aren’t investing in election integrity initiatives. AI companies don’t have the connections and funding to manage any risks involved with how their tools get utilized for elections. This means that there is less and less human oversight on what AI generates as well as how the AI-generated information gets used. --->READ MORE HEREFollow link below to a relevant story:
+++++‘An arms race forever’ as AI outpaces election law+++++
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