Don T Panic Yet Assessing The Evidence And Discourse Around
Why claims about the impact of generative AI on elections have been overblown A project studying how advanced AI systems may harm, or help strengthen, democratic freedoms Prominent voices worry that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) will negatively impact elections worldwide and trigger a misinformation apocalypse. A recurrent fear is that GenAI will make it easier to influence voters and facilitate the creation and dissemination of potent mis- and disinformation. We argue that despite the incredible capabilities of GenAI systems, their influence on election outcomes has been overestimated. Looking back at 2024, the predicted outsized effects of GenAI did not happen and were overshadowed by traditional sources of influence.
We review current evidence on the impact of GenAI in the 2024 elections and identify several reasons why the impact of GenAI on elections has been overblown. These include the inherent challenges of mass persuasion, the complexity of media effects and people’s interaction with technology, the difficulty of reaching target audiences, and the limited effectiveness of AI-driven microtargeting in political campaigns. Additionally, we argue that the socioeconomic, cultural, and personal factors that shape voting behavior outweigh the influence of AI-generated content. We further analyze the bifurcated discourse on GenAI’s role in elections, framing it as part of the ongoing “cycle of technology panics.” While acknowledging AI’s risks, such as amplifying social inequalities, we argue that... The paper calls for a recalibration of the narratives around AI and elections, proposing a nuanced approach that considers AI within broader sociopolitical contexts. The increasing public availability of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) systems, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and a slew of others has led to a resurgence of concerns about the impact of AI and...
Leading voices from politics, business, and the media twice listed “adverse outcomes of AI technologies” as having a potentially severe impact in the next two years (together with “mis- and disinformation”) in the World... The public is worried as well. A recent survey of eight countries, including Brazil, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. found that 84 percent of people were concerned about the use of AI to create fake content (Ejaz et al., 2024). Meanwhile, a large survey of AI researchers found that 86 percent were significantly or extremely concerned about AI and the spread of false information, and 79 percent about manipulation of large-scale public opinion trends... The main worry present in all these contexts is that AI will make it easier to create and target potent mis- and disinformation and propaganda and manipulate voters more effectively.
The integration of foundation models, particularly AI chatbots, into various digital media and their growing use for online searches, interaction with information and news, and use as personal assistants is also a growing concern,... A recurrent theme is the impact of AI on national elections. Initial predictions warned that GenAI would propel the world toward a “tech-enabled Armageddon” (Scott, 2023), where “elections get screwed up” (Verma & Zakrzewski, 2024), and that “anybody who’s not worried [was] not paying attention”... We critically examine these claims against the backdrop of the 2023-2024 global election cycle, during which nearly half of the world’s population had the opportunity to participate in elections, including in high-stakes contests in... and Brazil. Felix is a Research Fellow in AI and News at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and a former DPhil student at the OII.
A former Leverhulme and Dieter Schwarz Scholar, he researches AI in journalism and the news. Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Zurich Dr Altay is a postdoctoral research fellow working on misinformation, trust, and social media in the Digital Democracy Lab at the University of Zurich. Stay in touch with the latest updates from the Deepfakes Analysis Unit. Correspondence , Mathew Mercuri, Hamilton General Hospital, McMaster Wing, Rm 242, 237 Barton Street East, Hamilton, ON L8L 2X2, Canada. Email: matmercuri@hotmail.com
Received 2020 Mar 15; Accepted 2020 Mar 16; Issue date 2020 Jun. This article is being made freely available through PubMed Central as part of the COVID-19 public health emergency response. It can be used for unrestricted research re-use and analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source, for the duration of the public health emergency. “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you keep your feet, there's no knowing in where you might be swept off to”. ‐ J.R.R.
Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. Since news of the COVID‐19 outbreak hit the mainstream media, I have received several calls from acquaintances about if and how they should be worried. I suspect many readers of the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice have experienced the same. What makes communicating the risk difficult can be illustrated through a recent assignment I gave to my undergraduate class focused on how we use science in public policy. I asked the students to identify claims in the media regarding the virus and then search the literature to assess the level of support for such claims. Suffice it to say, they found several claims unsupported, and several others to be inconclusive.
Not a very good grounding for providing definitive (or even satisfying) advice. 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Our self-doubt is a secret source of democratic strength We live in an era of democratic pessimism. This is true in at least three senses. First, people in democracies today are much less hopeful than previous generations about their children’s prospects. Second, they are also skeptical about the value of democracy itself. Unhappy with social decay, sluggish and unequal economic growth, failing public services, ideological polarization and the endless culture wars that go with it, they question the political system that has produced these things.
And third, they gravitate toward political saviors whose democratic commitments are questionable at best. The evidence for these propositions is overwhelming. When the 21st century began, a CBS News/New York Times poll found that 71 percent of Americans thought the country’s youth would lead better lives than their parents. By 2022, when Gallup asked the same question, that number had fallen to 42 percent. A 2020 study from Cambridge University found that dissatisfaction with democracy among citizens of developed countries was at its highest point ever — close to 60 percent. Freedom House noted in its 2023 report that freedom around the globe had declined for its 18th consecutive year.
“The breadth and depth of the deterioration were extensive,” the think tank reported. “Political rights and civil liberties were diminished in 52 countries, while only 21 countries made improvements.” What the data show, everyday life corroborates. Whether it’s in the United States, Israel, Poland, France, or other advanced democracies, people increasingly view their political choices as zero-sum struggles between democrats and authoritarians — the authoritarians being whoever is on the... They’re also prepared to use antidemocratic means to maintain their grip on power, whether it’s in the form of denying the results of an election, or employing mob tactics to obstruct legislative processes, or... Underlying these antidemocratic behaviors is an antidemocratic mentality: Our side alone is in possession of the truth.
Our political opponents are mortal enemies. Disagreement is heresy. Where you stand politically is who you are morally. Wherever one looks, the habits of mind and spirit that sustain free societies seem to be withering. Over the past few decades, neuroscientists have shed new light on how chronic stress can make the brain more susceptible to mental health disorders. Many of those studies have looked at the long-term effects of adverse childhood events (ACES) or living through traumatic events like the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 or Hurricane Katrina.
The majority have shown that some people display more resilience in the face of these sorts of challenges, and that resilience is an active neurobiological process that can protect the brain despite increased and... Now, as people worldwide struggle to adapt to school and work closures, as well as other significant lifestyle changes, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, our favorite public figures are telling us not to... Here, Eric J. Nestler, M.D., Ph.D., Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Friedman Brain Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses how stress affects the brain – and how we... Q: What’s the difference between stress and panic? Nestler: These are two very different things.
Stress is anything that puts an extra burden or requirement on a system. It could be physical, psychological, or emotional. And it’s important to note that not all stress is bad. Years ago, I used to tell my teenage children that it was okay to stress a little – it helps us to focus, work harder, and get things done. The challenge is when there is prolonged or too much stress. If you think about stress as an inverted U-shaped curve, a little bit of stress helps improve performance.
But eventually you reach a tipping point where it all becomes too much, and you end up having difficulty functioning. You don’t want to get to that point. People use the term panic quite casually, but I think one should be careful in doing so. In psychiatry, it has a distinct meaning. A panic attack, for example, describes a particular collection of symptoms that occur sometimes spontaneously and other times when a person experiences overwhelming stress. There is a subjective feeling of panic, like perhaps that you are going to die, and that attack is associated with physiological changes like elevated heart and respiratory rate.
If you have regular panic attacks, you may be diagnosed with a panic disorder, a type of anxiety disorder.
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