Faking a political endorsement in Taiwan ahead of its crucial January election, sharing memes to amplify outrage over Japan’s disposal of nuclear wastewater, and spreading conspiracy theories that claim the U.S. government was behind Hawaii’s wildfire and Kentucky’s train derailment last year. These are just some of the ways that China’s influence operations have ramped up their use of artificial intelligence to sow disinformation and stoke discord worldwide over the last seven months, according to a new report released Friday by Microsoft Threat Intelligence.
Microsoft has observed notable trends from state-backed actors, the report said, “that demonstrate not only doubling down on familiar targets, but also attempts to use more sophisticated influence techniques to achieve their goals.” In particular, Chinese influence actors “experimented with new media” and “continued to refine AI-generated or AI-enhanced content.”
Among the operations highlighted in the report was a “a notable uptick in content featuring Taiwanese political figures ahead of the January 13 presidential and […]
There is a great deal to unpack in this article. I will confine my comments to one narrow field – Namely that what is occurring is exposing the American population to the contradictions in its own system. When the contradictions are exposed we and the so called leaders don’t like it one bit. In example after example it becomes clear that what is being exploited is our own distrust of the “official” narrative, and the honesty of the players involved. Both of these are a consequence of a narrow two party system which does not represent the majority of the population, and a government bent upon the imposition of the values of an empire across the globe. This type of manipulation is ineffective against a population which believes that its government is honest and transparent. One small example, both major party candidates have been embroiled in a classified documents scandal. Instead of having a discussion as to why the US government has to over classify so much material away from the view of its citizens, the political parties and press focus on which candidate is more to blame – a President with a atrocious memory or a rival bent upon keeping documents to themselves. Until we focus on the underlying structural problems we will consistently encounter these symptoms which distract our attention and allow other actors to exploit the contradictions inherent in our system.