Who’s ready for the AI election?

Cybersecurity has become a more prominent concern for election officials in the last decade, brought on in part by the 2016 DNC hack that sought to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and create a sense of mistrust around elections. And Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election further called into question the integrity of the system. Cyber attacks are sure to remain a threat this year, but the landscape has changed. For the first time, AI tools are available to the general public, making it much easier for anyone with a political agenda to spread disinformation. 

“It’s a lot easier to sow discord, confusion, and chaos by using things like AI and leveraging social media than it is to figure out how to hack into a government system,” Adam Marré, chief information security officer at cybersecurity company Arctic Wolf, told Fortune. 

Phishing emails, for example, become much more sophisticated with generative AI. The red flags consumers use to detect these spam messages—including spelling errors, strange formatting, and incorrect logos—can be corrected with the use of AI. And disinformation can go much further than spreading lies about a political candidate. Emails may include an incorrect voting date, a message stating a polling place has been closed, or a false confirmation a voter will receive a ballot in the mail. 

“This is something election officials need to be aware of and need to come up with ways to combat,” Marré said. 

Even if officials are aware of the new threat AI poses, there is a disconnect in their ability to address it. More than one-third of state and local government leaders said their budgets are either somewhat or very inadequate in addressing their cyber concerns for the upcoming election, according to a survey published by Arctic Wolf on Tuesday. The problem doesn’t just exist among small cities and counties, Marré said, but territories with larger funding amounts may still feel unprepared given the size of the system they’re protecting and the scope of the potential problem. 

Election offices are traditionally understaffed and overworked, with many sharing IT staff with other departments or lacking them altogether, said Lawrence Norden, senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit policy institute. Budgets have to pay for a breadth of products, people, and services—poll workers, voting equipment, paper ballots, mail-in ballot trackers, and even physical security, as threats to election workers have increased in recent years. When it comes to robust cybersecurity measures, some offices “just don’t have the money,” Norden told Fortune. 

It’s not all bad news. The government last year increased its presence of advisors across the country to help localities access federal resources, and there’s a whole branch of AI working to counter these attacks. But ultimately, experts said voters must be aware of new ways bad actors can use AI to impact the information they consume about the election. 

On that note, here’s some of the biggest tech news of the day.

Rachyl Jones

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NEWSWORTHY

Teen trouble. Meta will change teenagers’ Facebook and Instagram accounts to the most restrictive content settings in a new update, following criticisms of social media’s harmful effects on young people, CNBC reported. It will prevent teens from seeing content related to self-harm, eating disorders, and nudity, and the company will ask users to update their privacy settings on Instagram. 

Amazon’s (Air)Play. Amazon introduced a feature called Matter Casting that functions similar to Apple’s AirPlay and Google’s Cast by allowing devices to wirelessly project video to a television screen, Bloomberg reported. The product will make it easier for consumers to send content from iOS and Android phones to Fire TV boxes and sticks. 

Fox tracking. Fox Corp. introduced a new blockchain platform that will help media companies track how their content is being used online, Axios reported. The product, called Verify, intends to help Fox and other media companies negotiate deals for AI companies to license their content.

IN OUR FEED

“Because we’re not pursuing a specific legislative and regulatory outcome, it’s not really traditional lobbying. We really want to be a technical partner to regulators.”

—OpenAI Vice President of Global Affairs Anna Makanju said in an interview with the Washington Post about the company’s strategy to educate politicians about its work and support regulation. As a result, lawmakers appear warmer to CEO Sam Altman than other tech giants like Mark Zuckerberg, which could benefit the company as Congress moves towards regulating AI.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Elon Musk discussed his vision and features for a Twitch competitor while playing Diablo online for 3 hours, by Kylie Robison 

SpaceX releases ‘cringeworthy’ Elon Musk staff meeting video at the center of Wall Street Journal drug allegations, by Christiaan Hetzner

Carta is exiting the startup secondary trading business and told employees it is pausing all sales outreach ‘until further notice’, by Jessica Mathews

Nvidia is working on its approach to China, the world’s second-largest economy, as it tries to comply with Biden’s chip export controls, by Lionel Lim

OpenAI accuses New York Times of ‘not telling the full story’ about copyright while admitting ‘rare bug’ spits out exact quotes, by Rachel Metz and Bloomberg 

U.S. EV sales fell short of predictions in 2023. Elon Musk and range anxiety could be to blame, according to a new poll, by Will Johnson 

BEFORE YOU GO

Musk’s pivot to everything. Elon Musk’s X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, is now a “video-first platform” and will launch peer-to-peer payments this year, the company said in a blog post on Tuesday. The announcement aligns with Musk’s vision for the app to become a “global town square” of sorts, offering video, messaging, payments, and banking, in addition to acting as a social media platform. 

“X is not just another app – it's becoming the everything app, seamlessly uniting experiences into one interface, for everyone,” the company wrote in the blog post.