CarderPlanet
Professional
"Colossal stupidity" or a new tool of political struggle?
On the eve of the parliamentary elections in Slovakia, which took place on September 30, 2023, audio recordings of allegedly private conversations of Slovak politicians were distributed on the Internet. The fact that these materials were fakes (or rather deepfakes) was not immediately clear.
One of the recordings contained a conversation between the leader of the pro-European Progressive Slovakia party, Michal Simecki, and a local journalist. The fake Simechka made obscene comments about competitors, discussed the possibility of bribing Roma voters, and even joked about child pornography.
Experts of the international Agence France-Presse, after careful analysis, still came to the conclusion that the conversation was generated by artificial intelligence and has nothing to do with reality. This is a well-known technology that carefully analyzes the real voice recordings of the victim, and then creates fake ones.
The conversation with the journalist was just one of several shared on social networks, instant messengers, and via email. In one example, "Simechka" shares with the interlocutor his plans to increase beer prices after taking office.
It is obvious that the authors of audio did not pass by the most famous platforms. Among the sources of misinformation were Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Telegram.
The politician himself called the campaign "colossal obvious stupidity" and added that he could not even imagine who could be behind this "dirty provocation".
Unfortunately, it is impossible to accurately assess what impact the generated dirt had on the voting results. However, the fact remains that Simechka's party took second place, behind the party of former Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Experts note that the appearance of deepfakes is a worrying sign. Although cybersecurity experts have long warned about the threat that generative technologies pose to society, such cases have been extremely rare so far.
Now AI models have become much more accessible, so almost anyone can "play" with creating realistic images and videos. Head of the Slovak Interior Ministry's anti-disinformation unit, Daniel Milo, warns: "Although from a technical point of view, this deepfake was quite primitive, the record spread very quickly. After a year or two, you may not be able to tell the difference between a real recording and a fake one."
In addition to the development of generative AI, the cybersecurity community is concerned about numerous hacks of voter databases around the world. All this makes us seriously think about the security and transparency of future elections, as well as how the process can be modernized. Unfortunately, it is already difficult to distinguish truth from fiction in the modern information field. And new technologies make this task almost impossible.
On the eve of the parliamentary elections in Slovakia, which took place on September 30, 2023, audio recordings of allegedly private conversations of Slovak politicians were distributed on the Internet. The fact that these materials were fakes (or rather deepfakes) was not immediately clear.
One of the recordings contained a conversation between the leader of the pro-European Progressive Slovakia party, Michal Simecki, and a local journalist. The fake Simechka made obscene comments about competitors, discussed the possibility of bribing Roma voters, and even joked about child pornography.
Experts of the international Agence France-Presse, after careful analysis, still came to the conclusion that the conversation was generated by artificial intelligence and has nothing to do with reality. This is a well-known technology that carefully analyzes the real voice recordings of the victim, and then creates fake ones.
The conversation with the journalist was just one of several shared on social networks, instant messengers, and via email. In one example, "Simechka" shares with the interlocutor his plans to increase beer prices after taking office.
It is obvious that the authors of audio did not pass by the most famous platforms. Among the sources of misinformation were Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Telegram.
The politician himself called the campaign "colossal obvious stupidity" and added that he could not even imagine who could be behind this "dirty provocation".
Unfortunately, it is impossible to accurately assess what impact the generated dirt had on the voting results. However, the fact remains that Simechka's party took second place, behind the party of former Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Experts note that the appearance of deepfakes is a worrying sign. Although cybersecurity experts have long warned about the threat that generative technologies pose to society, such cases have been extremely rare so far.
Now AI models have become much more accessible, so almost anyone can "play" with creating realistic images and videos. Head of the Slovak Interior Ministry's anti-disinformation unit, Daniel Milo, warns: "Although from a technical point of view, this deepfake was quite primitive, the record spread very quickly. After a year or two, you may not be able to tell the difference between a real recording and a fake one."
In addition to the development of generative AI, the cybersecurity community is concerned about numerous hacks of voter databases around the world. All this makes us seriously think about the security and transparency of future elections, as well as how the process can be modernized. Unfortunately, it is already difficult to distinguish truth from fiction in the modern information field. And new technologies make this task almost impossible.
