Last night, Channel 4 aired "Could AI Influence the Way You Vote?" featuring 12 undecided families who were tested to see whether AI could manipulate their voting inclination. Split into two groups, half of the families were subjected to news articles, social media posts, and videos aiming to push them towards voting Labour, while the other half were nudged towards the Conservatives. Unknown to them, some of the information, including videos of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, were artificially manufactured using AI to determine their voting choice.
One of the families on the show was Jim Anderson, and his wife, Samantha Anderson, who are the owners of the popular Oaktree Restaurant in Leigh. Jim said: "The way it was done, was as undecided voters, we were given footage that we were told was due to be released soon. "I would have watched that programme and questioned why they didn’t, but as they were from Channel 4, we had no reason to question it.
"It is scary looking back, and also an element of embarrassment, as you think you wouldn’t fall for AI, but you do. "It really is a wake-up call. "Even once we were told what we had been shown or told was fake, the anger towards them still felt real, as the videos were almost there to feed into a narrative you already had within you.
"It was actually quite scary.” AI is a technology that enables machines to mimic human intelligence. Deepfake, a subset of AI, can produce false image or video imitations that replicate someone's vo.
