New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver has launched a statewide campaign to educate voters about risks associated with artificial intelligence, deep fakes, and their impact on the manipulation of election information. She recently discussed the campaign with Scott Brocato.
SCOTT BROCATO:
Why do you feel the campaign is so important?
MAGGIE TOULOUSE OLIVER:
Well, in general, we think that there needs to be greater awareness of mis-and- disinformation in the election sphere. We know that this has been going on, of course, since the dawn of elections. It's really ramped up in American elections and in New Mexico in the last several years in the current political environment. And with the emergence of A.I. and particularly generative A.I. for the use of producing misleading campaign or election content, we felt like we had an opportunity here in 2024 to get ahead of the curve before we start seeing a lot of very real looking or real sounding information out there in the public sphere, just to make sure that voters had an awareness and had some tools and resources so that they could try to figure out for themselves whether what they are seeing and hearing is real or not.
SCOTT BROCATO:
How does one identify A.I.-manipulated media, and what are some tips on detecting deep fakes?
MAGGIE TOULOUSE OLIVER:
I would really urge folks to visit this new website that we created, https://www.sos.nm.gov/ai/, and we have an entire toolkit available, including a quiz that you can take after you've kind of gone through some of the tips. But when you're looking at photos, for example: certain kinds of shadows, whether or not hands in particular look real in terms of video, whether or not you know the individual is speaking in a way that--frankly, like you and I are speaking right now--a little bit faster, a little slower. That's how it would happen in real life with the deep fake videos. We tend to see just the sort of monotone and speech that doesn't really vary in speed.
So a lot of the time you won't see blinking. You know, human beings blink! And with deep fake videos, often that is not the case. So there's a really a whole slew of tips and tricks and things that are easily rememberable. But I think to go into all of them here would be a lot, but really just want to urge folks to visit that website sos.nm.gov/AI.
SCOTT BROCATO:
You mentioned the quiz, the A.I. quiz. What does that consist of, the quiz?
MAGGIE TOULOUSE OLIVER:
It's really just sort of an opportunity, once you've kind of gone through some of the information, to see how much you've retained or see how much you might already know. We know there's a lot of folks out there who've been paying attention to this emerging issue for a while. So the idea is just to give the average person a chance to see for themselves how sophisticated they already are in terms of identifying photos that are real or A.I.-generated; and also just sort of checking to see whether some of the tips and tricks have been remembered already. So it's fun.
I was talking with my colleague, Steve Simon, the Minnesota Secretary of State. He visited the website. He took the quiz. I did the same. And when we both first took it, we both got about a 6 out of 10, because some of those AI-generated photos just are so real looking. So it's a really good opportunity to see kind of where you are, and when you get something wrong, you go, Oh, I didn't notice that. OK, maybe in the future I'll notice something like that if I'm looking at an A.I.-generated photo.
SCOTT BROCATO:
What should people do if they receive a deep fake or A.I. information?
MAGGIE TOULOUSE OLIVER:
Well, in particular, we are concerned in our office about misleading election information. And bottom line, we're talking about what, where, and how to cast your ballot. You know, we can't really...we can't regulate the entire world of public speech, the A.I. content, but we are concerned about that. So we certainly want folks to report any potential misleading information, especially if it contains A.I.-generated content. And there is information on that website about how to report those activities.
But similarly, if you are seeing campaign activity, anything promoting a candidate or against the candidate running for office, that may also have something that looks like it could be A.I.-generated content. There is a new law on the books here in New Mexico that that requires a disclosure. If you're not seeing a disclosure that says it contains content that contains generated A.I., that should be reported to our office as well.
SCOTT BROCATO:
And once again the website where folks can find more information about this issue?
MAGGIE TOULOUSE OLIVER:
It's at https://www.sos.nm.gov/ai/
SCOTT BROCATO:
New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, thanks for joining us on KRWG public media to talk about this very important issue.
MAGGIE TOULOUSE OLIVER:
And thank you so much for having me.
