AEC checks Meta AI’s handling of election questions – Software

The Australian Electoral Commission is running its own checks on tools like Meta AI to determine the extent to which they are susceptible to producing “false information about the Australian election”.

Commissioner Tom Rogers told a senate inquiry yesterday that, in line with its legislative authority, the commission is “concerned about AI that misleads citizens about the act of voting – where and when to vote, how to cast a formal vote, [or] the fact that the voting process is secure.”

He said the commission held a meeting with Meta about three weeks ago, with a follow-up meeting planned later this week, where the topics included election-related protections in AI tools and on social media platforms.

Meta AI was only recently integrated into the social media company’s main platforms.

“Just to give Meta some praise, after that [first] meeting, a whole bunch of us sat around a table unscientifically and tried to get their new AI search tool to spit forward false information about the Australian election by asking a whole range of questions, and we couldn’t do it,” Rogers said.

“We’re just doing a further check of that at the moment.”

Much of the hearing focused on the extent to which AI could be abused to deepfake audio or video of political rivals, whether the AEC had a role to play in policing that, and whether such a role should be legislated.

This issue has arisen overseas, particularly in the US where AI-generated robocalls were used to try to alter voter behaviour.

Rogers was of the view that such content could make an appearance before the next federal election.

“We’re seeing increased use of those sorts of tactics in elections around the world,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be immune to that.”

He was unequivocal in not wanting a role in policing it – but resigned to being drawn into it anyway.

“We’ve never been involved in [policing truth in political advertising], whether it’s generated by AI or any other process, and we don’t want to be involved in that,” Rogers said.

“I acknowledge it will come to us, because at election time, anything that’s got the word ‘election’ in it eventually comes to the AEC. But for a lot of that we would refer that off to others, potentially the Australian Federal Police. People that are affected by that content may have other remedies, such as civil or injunctive relief. 

“[Questions about] truth of political statements … need to be lodged somewhere else – may I say, anywhere else – or there must be other tools to combat it.”