AI misrepresents reality---that undermines democracy and drives social conflict

In this section, we describe three sets of threats associated with the misuse of AI, whether it be deliberate, negligent, accidental or because of a failure to anticipate and prepare to adapt to the transformational impacts of AI on society. The first set of threats comes from the ability of AI to rapidly clean, organise and analyse massive data sets consisting of personal data, including images collected by the increasingly ubiquitous presence of cameras, and to develop highly personalised and targeted marketing and information campaigns as well as greatly expanded systems of surveillance. This ability of AI can be put to good use, for example, improving our access to information or countering acts of terrorism. But it can also be misused with grave consequences. The use of this power to generate commercial revenue for social media platforms, for example, has contributed to the rise in polarisation and extremist views observed in many parts of the world.21 It has also been harnessed by other commercial actors to create a vast and powerful personalised marketing infrastructure capable of manipulating consumer behaviour. Experimental evidence has shown how AI used at scale on social media platforms provides a potent tool for political candidates to manipulate their way into power.22 23 and it has indeed been used to manipulate political opinion and voter behaviour.24–26 Cases of AI-driven subversion of elections include the 2013 and 2017 Kenyan elections,27 the 2016 US presidential election and the 2017 French presidential election.28 29 When combined with the rapidly improving ability to distort or misrepresent reality with deepfakes, AI-driven information systems may further undermine democracy by causing a general breakdown in trust or by driving social division and conflict,26–28 with ensuing public health impacts.