CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — As Election Day nears, the spread of disinformation is a key concern for many voters. One of the newest tools for falsifying information is artificial intelligence.
“I think that it's more difficult to be an informed voter than it's ever been," Dr. Jared Schroeder of the University of Missouri told KRIS 6 News. Schroeder is an associate professor of journalism focused on disinformation and misinformation.
“As we go into future years, more and more people are going to be taking this technology and using it to create false information,” he said.
Misinformationis false or inaccurate information, while disinformation is false information deliberately intended to mislead.
In a study by Forbes, more than 75% of consumers expressed concerns about AI’s impact on trust in online information.
“They're becoming more difficult to spot as the technology gets better. The false information is more believable," Schroeder explained. "Our faith in our elections has already been a little bit undermined. And so for people to see this false information, it becomes believable because it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy."
AI-generated images have become a contentious point for many online users. Many AI software systems rely on pre-existing data to create text, images and videos.
For example, X's Grok AI chatbot recently unveiled an image generator with few restrictions, which users immediately utilized to create hyper-realistic images of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former President Donald Trump.
"I'm worried about something really significant happening pre-election or on election night. As results are coming in, people might begin to share information that will go viral. It'll start somewhere in a little dark corner of the internet and find its way slowly into the light," Schroeder said.
According to the Pew Research Center, over half (54%) of U.S. adults sometimes get their news from social media, and 73% say they have seen inaccurate election coverage at least somewhat often.
To remain well-informed during the election and its aftermath, Schroeder has some advice:
Be skeptical. I think that's a good thing for all of is to be skeptical. If something seems too good to be true, if it seems too perfect, or if it seems a little odd. Because even as the technology gets better, there's always a little something off about these things. And whether it's just a little too perfect, a little too believable, whatever it is, a little the imaging just looks a little off. The shadows aren't quite right. Whatever it is, just be skeptical. Double check the information and other sources before you go forward. Don't be a spreader. If they see something and they're like, wow, that's huge and no one else is reporting this. I can't believe this, I found it. Before you share it with everybody else, look it up, look around, see if there's anything else that verifies this information. It's almost like this era is requiring almost every citizen to have some journalism training, that they have to step back and say, before I report this to an audience, in this case, their social media following, let me make sure this is right. So I encourage all voters or citizens to stop and just double check it with some reputable information sources. Make sure you're right. And that could really help because you're not only helping yourself, but you're also not sharing that misleading information in a way it could affect other people. To let it stop with you would be a good option.
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