Dozens of prominent U.S. and state government officials, advocacy groups, and executives from big tech companies gathered in New York last month to participate in an important simulated election exercise.
The war game exercise imagined a fictional crisis in which AI-generated photos and videos are released on social media immediately before the 2024 election. The images appear to show election officials in Florida dumping ballots, in an apparent attempt to manipulate the election’s outcome.
If a deepfake election crisis does occur — and there are good reasons to think it will — Trump’s enemies will be ready to take advantage.
The simulation also included phone calls to elderly voters in Arizona that featured AI-generated voices. The calls asked elderly voters to stay away from polling centers due to threats from radical militia groups.
Participants role-played how the Biden administration should respond to the simulated deepfake event. They gathered in a mock “White House Situation Room,” with each player taking on the role of a prominent figure in government, civil society, or corporate America, including the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, big tech companies, and even the CIA.
Participants engaged in lengthy debates about how government should address the problem, including whether Joe Biden should personally get involved, one of the “big debates in the room,” according to a report by NBC News. Participants were apparently concerned that if Biden made any statements, it would be used as proof that he was attempting to rig the election in his favor.
Organizers called the event “the Deepfake Dilemma.” (The word “deepfake” refers to AI-generated content that is so realistic-looking or -sounding that it can fool people into believing it’s authentic.)
The Deepfake Dilemma is part of a much larger effort taking place nationally to prepare for a 2024 deepfake election crisis, and it should scare the heck out of you.
A potential catastrophe
Without question, AI-generated content could have an impact on the 2024 election. A well-timed deepfake image, audio clip, or video could create massive confusion for voters or perhaps even affect how individuals decide to vote. The danger is real.
It isn’t hard to imagine, for example, how a deepfake audio clip of Donald Trump talking to Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine could be used to swing the election in Joe Biden’s favor. This is especially true if such a clip were to be released just before Election Day.
Although they don’t always get the media attention they deserve, election deepfakes have been released at a rapidly increasing pace in recent years, both in the United States and abroad.
For instance, just prior to the New Hampshire Democratic primary, a deepfake robocall featuring the AI-generated voice of Joe Biden asked people to stay home, to save their vote for the general election. The robocall scheme was the work of Steve Kramer, a longtime Democratic Party operative.
During a heated mayoral race in Chicago in 2023, unknown nefarious actors released AI-generated audio of Paul Vallas. At that time, Vallas was considered the favorite to win the election. The audio, which was posted online by a fake news website called the Chicago Lakefront News, appears to show Vallas saying that back in his day, cops would kill 17 or 18 people and “nobody would bat an eye.” The audio clip also suggests that the city should start “refunding the police.”
Vallas ended up losing the mayoral race to Brandon Johnson, a far-left candidate. It’s unlikely the audio is the primary reason Vallas lost, but no one knows for sure how great an impact the audio had.
At stake in 2024
Although the threat of a deepfake election crisis in 2024 is real, it’s possible a bigger threat to a fair election is that anti-Trump groups might use an election deepfake to keep Trump out of the White House.
NBC News reports that the participants in the Deepfake Dilemma war game and other “nonprofits and good-government groups” are actively working to build a nationwide network of “former officials, technology specialists, and others to help local authorities detect deepfakes in real time and respond with accurate information.”
That might be a good thing, if it weren’t for the fact that most of those involved appear to have a strong bias against Donald Trump, raising serious questions about whether they would use a future deepfake event to benefit Joe Biden.
One of the event’s participants was Kathryn Boockvar, a Democrat who served as Pennsylvania’s secretary of state during the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s campaign sued Boockvar’s office in 2020, alleging that the state and local officials violated election law.
Another participant was MSNBC anchor Alex Witt, an outspoken Trump critic.
Further, one of the key groups behind the effort is a nonprofit organization called Issue One. Issue One’s CEO participated in the war game and is also working across the country to develop better “election integrity” laws.
Although Issue One sells itself as “bipartisan,” it has directly opposed Trump on numerous occasions. Many of the Republicans affiliated with the group are openly opposed to Trump as well.
On its website, Issue One brags that it “helped lead the congressional push to establish a 9/11-style commission to investigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.” It also lauds its Count Every Vote initiative, a “campaign to defend the integrity of the 2020 elections.”
Another key figure in the growing deepfake election network is Miles Taylor, an organizer of the March event. Taylor is a rabid opponent of Trump, one who has strong connections to the national security industry. Taylor served as the chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration. While still in that position, he anonymously published an infamous op-ed in the New York Times titled, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”
In the Times article, Taylor painted a bleak picture of Trump and his motives, routinely hurling insults at his boss while hiding behind his anonymous byline.
For example, Taylor wrote, “Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic” and that his leadership style is “impetuous, adversarial, petty, and ineffective.”
Do any of these people sound like nonpartisan figures?
Do they sound like people who should be responsible for giving guidance to lawmakers and election officials in the event of a dire deepfake election crisis?
Do you trust that if a crisis does develop, Taylor and others won’t use it as an opportunity to benefit Joe Biden?
Just to be clear: I’m not saying that anti-Trump forces are planning to launch a false flag deepfake operation during or prior to the 2024 election. But if a deepfake election crisis does occur — and there are good reasons to think it will — those who hate Trump will be ready to take advantage. They are working tirelessly to put the infrastructure in place to give themselves the best chance of controlling the narrative.
With all this in mind, you might be wondering how conservatives are preparing.
As far as I can tell, they aren’t.
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