Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) warned that artificial intelligence (AI) could be a “magnifier” of misinformation ahead of the upcoming election on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“Well, look, I have to go back to my past,” Fontes said, according to a transcript. “And in boot camp and other military training I had in the Marine Corps, we observed our enemies’ weapons and trained against them as much as possible. AI is not a new weapon. It is an amplifier and a magnifier of false and misinformation.”
“What I wanted to do is make sure that our election officials were familiar with this, that we had processes in place to deal with it and address it within each of our counties, because our elections are also held at the county level. county,” continued Fontes. . “We also had a multi-table exercise for election officials for the media so that our media partners could know how to react to this and recognize it.”
President Biden he said Tuesday, in a post on the social platform X, that AI “and the companies that exercise its possibilities will transform people’s lives around the world – there is no doubt about that”.
“But first, they must earn our trust,” Biden continued. “I commit to doing everything I can to promote and demand safe, reliable and responsible innovation – which includes the use of AI-generated audio. I ask that AI companies join me in this commitment.”
In the same appearance on “Meet the Press,” Fontes also said that the growing threats to election officials are “domestic terrorism” and that he and other offices are trying to address the issue alongside law enforcement across the country.
“And I think about what we were talking about a moment ago, one of the ways I’ve been looking at this and approaching this is by telling the really hard truth,” Fontes said.
“And this is it: the threats against election officials in the United States of America are domestic terrorism,” he continued. “Terrorism is defined as a threat or violence to a political outcome. That’s what it is.”
A survey conducted earlier this month found that nearly four in 10 election workers have experienced threats, harassment or abuse at work.
Updated at 8:24 a.m. EDT
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