20 Technology Companies Agree To Eradicate Corruption Content Of Artificial Intelligence In Global Elections

Nick Clegg (right), president of global affairs at Meta Platforms. (photo: x @amitabhk87)

JAKARTA - A group of 20 technology companies announced on Friday 16 February that they had agreed to work together to prevent misleading artificial intelligence content from disrupting elections around the world this year.

The rapid growth of generative artificial intelligence (AI), which can create text, images, and videos in seconds in response to demand, has raised concerns that this new technology could be used to influence this year's massive election, as more than half of the world's population is scheduled to head to polling stations.

Signatures from the tech agreement, announced at the Munich Security Conference, include companies building a generative AI model used to create content, including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Adobe.

The agreement includes a commitment to collaborate in developing tools to detect misleading AI images, videos and audio, creating public awareness campaigns to educate voters about misleading content, and taking action against the content on their services.

Technology to identify AI content generated or confirm its origins can include watermarking or embedding metadata, the companies said. The agreement does not specify a time schedule to fulfill commitments or how each company will implement it.

"I think the benefit of this (approval) is the diversity of companies registering for it," said Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta Platforms.

"Everything is good and good if individual platforms develop new policies for detection, property, labeling, watermarking, and so on, but unless there is a wider commitment to doing it in a joint interoperable way, we will be stuck with a different budget commitment," Clegg said.

Generative AIs have been used to influence politics and even convince people not to vote. In January, an automated call using fake US President Joe Biden's audio circulated to New Hampshire voters, encouraging them to stay at home during the state's presidential election.

Despite the popularity of text-producing tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, tech companies will focus on preventing harmful effects from photos, videos and AI audio, in part because people tend to be more skeptical of text, said Dana Rao, Adobe's chief trustee, in an interview. "There's an emotional connection with audio, video, and images," he said. "Your brain is labeled to believe in that type of media."