Swisss info has since questioned the role of AI in election.
There may be an influence on results and still not a significant one.
However, the spread of content manipulated with artificial intelligence (AI) has further divided political opinion and created a climate of mistrust, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) wrote in a press release on the report on Tuesday.
For example, AI-manipulated videos, known as deepfakes, have been used in elections in several countries, it said. In the report, the EPFL researchers cite the 2023 elections in Switzerland, in which parliamentarian Andreas Glarner created a deepfake video of his political rival Sibel Arslan, as an example of this. Another example, according to the report, is Donald Trump’s repeated claim that all negative reports about him are deepfakes.
The use of manipulated content for propaganda purposes is nothing new, the researchers emphasised. However, AI has made it much easier to create and distribute manipulated images and content, which accelerates the spread of political propaganda and increases the risk of disinformation.
Political parties in Swiss have agreed to limit use of AI ahead of elections.