Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh now it makes sense.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Sunday, the second of March. I'm Billy, I'm Zara.
We're back in your ears on a Sunday morning again. Again.
We love surprising you with a new episode on Sundays.
And Zara, I think today's topic.
Is very relevant and interesting and super interesting. So we are nearly, at any moment now about to enter election season in Australia.
The number of times that we have said that ONCAS we're nearly there, We're just there. However, many synonyms can say for we are close to an election.
We are close to an election.
So there is one that is due to be held on the seventeenth of May, or before if Prime Minister Anthony Alberanezi decides for us to go to an election earlier, and that could mean that we are about to enter a period of dis and misinformation in Australia. So today we are talking about a very specific type of false information and that.
Is deep fakes.
More specifically, we want to talk about how deep fakes can impact elections, and in this context we're talking about deep fakes that are deceptive and harmful. A quick note before we start. This podcast is produced with financial support from Microsoft. However, the content does remain entirely independent. And if you're wondering why Microsoft would be interested in sponsoring a podcast on deep fakes.
In it, I was quite interested.
Well you, yeah, because you might not know that they are very involved in this space and they have teams that track the threat of actors who are often the ones creating deep fakes.
Very interesting, now, Billy, you have used the word deep fake a record number of times in the introduction of a podcast. For anyone who's not familiar with the term, though, what are you talking about when you say deep fake?
So they are digital photos or videos of someone that looks very real, but they have actually been created using artificial intelligence and they are fake, although often they're not entirely fake. So it could be a video where ninety percent of that video is real, but then there's ten percent that is generated by AI and is fake. But it's that ten percent that is really deceptive.
Well, I guess yeah.
When you're looking at something and so much of it looks real, your sense of what's real and what's fake is so.
Distortive exactly, and that is a key feature of deep fakes, that they are highly highly realistic. Now, one famous example that comes to my mind when we talk about deep fakes is I don't know if you've seen this there or if you remember this, but the image of Pope
Francis in a Valenciago quilted jacket. It's kind of walking the streets in this massive white jacket, and it went completely viral at the time in March train twenty three, and a lot of people obviously didn't know it was a fake photo because it looked so real, and two years ago, there wasn't really the conversations happening at the time that there are now, when we are much more aware that there are so many fake images, and obviously we are talking about AI so much even we're talking
about AI so much more today than we were a month ago, let alone two years ago, and so that is one of I would say that's one of the more innocuous examples of deep fakes where although it was fake, it didn't necessarily do any damage by people believing that it was real. But why we're talking about it today is because deep fakes can and they have been used in a much more deceptive way, and one of those ways is during elections.
I see how you're bringing this altogether.
We're circling that.
So there have been examples around the world where politicians or political candidates or even just people who want a certain party to win, have used deep fakes to mislead voters and to benefit their campaign. Or it could not even be for that reason, it could just be to cause chaos or cause disruption.
Okay, So we're talking about it because we're in the lead up to an election and we've seen not just here but across the world examples of deep fakes being used during an election cycle. Can you talk me through some of the examples that we've seen of this and how it's been used.
Yeah.
I thought we would start in Australia because you might not be aware that there have actually been examples in Australian elections or by Australian parties of using deep fakes. So Queensland, Hm'm sure you've heard of it, familiar. They had an election last year and the Liberal National Party posted a video of the then Premier, Steven Miles dancing with text beneath it that said pov my rent is up sixty dollars a week, my power bill is up
twenty percent. But the premier made a sandwich on TikTok, So basically they were saying that the premiere at the time was dancing and was happy despite the fact that the rent in the state had gone up on average for the average renter. Now, that video was actually labeled as AI generated, although I would say that the label was pretty easy to miss if you weren't necessarily looking out for it, and so it was just this completely fake video of Steven Male dancing.
I remember seeing that at the time and coming up on you for you page it did, and I remember thinking that it was the first time I recall seeing something like that here in Australia.
Yeah, and it generated a lot of media coverage. But then a lot of that coverage then pointed out that this is not unique to one side of politics. And actually around that time, well actually before that video was posted, the Australian Labor Party had also posted a video on their TikTok that had used AI to create a fake video of Federal Opposition leader Peter dune and dancing with the words dance if you want to build nuclear power
plants in everyone's backyard. Zara, I'm going to send you the video for you to look.
Right now.
I realized this is an audio platform and so the audience can't see it. But Zara, I want to get your reaction.
My god, oh my god.
I'm going to say, it's probably not the most realistic.
It looks nothing like Peter Dudden.
Okay, but you can see that it's trying to kind of imitate him vaguely. Sure, Look, this is one of the examples where it is pretty clear to most people.
That it was a fake video.
However, it must be said that like you and I look at Peter Dudden day and day out where we work in news, we're very familiar with what he looks like. I imagine for someone that's perhaps not paying the same amount of attention, maybe they wouldn't be able to tell.
You yes exactly. And also, I think the Stephen Miles one, if you look at that one, it was a lot more realistic. Yeah, but again, these are videos of the politicians, and so it is one of the more benign examples of how deep fakes can be used in elections.
Okay, So if you're saying that those are benign examples, or perhaps more benign examples. What are some of the more troublesome deceptive examples that we've got out there.
Yeah, so if we look overseas, there are quite a few more troublesome examples. So one example that the audience might be familiar with or might have seen in their feeds is that during the US election last year, in the lead up to that election, Elon Musk shared a video that looked like an ad campaign for Kamala Harris, who was the Democratic candidate for the US presidency last year. Here's a bit of that clip.
I Kamal Harris and your Democrat candidate for presidents because Joe Biden finally exposed to sinilitive to be thanks, John, I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire. I'm both a woman and a president of color. So if you've criticized anything I say, you're both sexist and racist.
That one's crazy because that sounds exactly like her.
Yeah, it would be look video.
Yeah, if you were watching it, it would be really hard to tell that that is a fake video. And you probably couldn't immediately tell unless you were in tune with every single thing Kamla Harris has ever said, you would have to do some digging to figure out if that was real or fake, especially when it's shared by a very influential person. Now, that video received nearly one hundred and forty million views according to x's Metrics, and
it was liked by nearly one million accounts. Wow, so that gives you an idea of how viral this kind of content can go.
I'm just looking at the tweet responses. What's that called yesh x response?
And ex responds someone who was retweeted one hundred and ninety three times and like ten thousand times said.
Is this AI or reel?
Yeah?
So clear genuinely no idea.
Yeah, it clearly wasn't that clear to me any many people. As I'm sure you've guessed. The reason we're talking about it is because it was completely fake. Kamala Harris never said those words, so that voice was completely AI generated, but it sounded and looked extremely realistic. Now, it's hard to measure what impact a video like that had on
the minds of voters in the US. It could have had no impact at all, or it could be quite significant, Again, especially when shared by a very influential person such as Musk So that's one example, but there are also examples of foreign countries using deep fakes to interfere with elections.
Can you unpack that more for me?
Yeah, it's quite a big concept to get your head around.
So foreign actors interfering with domestic elections in a different country.
Exactly, And it's not really something that many of us would ever think about, but it's probably something that you've heard murmurs about, this idea that there are countries who try to interfere with other countries' elections with the aim of electing a government they believe will be more closely aligned with their own policies and agendas, or like I said before, it could not be because of that, it could be again just to create chaos and disruption to society.
What are some examples of that?
So if we stick with looking at the US election last year, Microsoft actually did a report into how rushing groups created deep fakes to try to influence the US election. Now, before I go on, I do just want to quickly mention that, as we discussed earlier, this podcast is sponsored by Microsoft, but when not required to talk about them in this section, they just have done a lot of research in this area that I thought was very relevant to talk about. Okay, good clear disclaimer, just want to
be completely transparent there. So in a report last year, Microsoft found that two groups that were aligned with the Russian government, the Kremlin, had created and disseminated videos that were quote designed to discredit Harris again talking about Kamala
Harris and stoke controversy around her campaign. So, for example, they found this one video that showed Harris supporters attacking an attendee at a Trump rally, and that video was completely false, but it was still seen by millions and millions of people, and there was no labeling or anything that indicated.
This video was fake.
So to someone who was just on their feedscrolling through, there wasn't any clear signs that this was a fake video. And so basically what they found is that these groups intentionally created these videos and planted them in front of US audiences to sway their opinion in this case against Harris.
Yeah, it's really interesting and again needs to be said,
this isn't happening on one side of politics. We've seen examples across the aisle when it comes to this Billy one thing that I think about when you're talking about this is the onus that exists on on the individual, because ultimately we're saying you can be served up fake content that is mimicking reality but is not real, and sometimes deceptively, sometimes in a more benign nature, and we are expecting audiences to be able to critically, I guess,
analyze what they're seeing and understand how can people tell if videos that they're watching or photos they're seeing a real or AI generator. You know, for example, we've seen the President of the United States share something recently there was completely AI generated and completely fake.
Yeah.
I speak to my friends about this all the time because we're always, you know, sending each other videos and whatnot, and we're always talking about how do we tell if this is real or not? And what's hard is that by definition, deep fakes are incredibly realistic. The whole point is for you to think.
That they are real.
I think the main thing to look for is who is sharing this video and what is the primary source or does a primary source even exist? So if it's from an verified, completely random account, then that's more likely to be a fake video than one shared by a reputable news outlet, or even better, a primary source, so Zara, as you know, at TDA, we are all about the primary source, So that means looking at where each and
every piece of information originates from. So just for some context for the listeners, our guiding rule at TDA is that every fact we share needs to have a primary source. We need to know exactly where it came from and go to that place to get that information ourselves.
So if we look at the video of.
Kamala Harris shared by Elon Musk, that kind of is more murky because obviously Elon Musk's page is verified, so I understand why a lot of people would have thought it was real. But again, if we are looking for the primary source in that case, you would find it on either Harris's own verified page, all the Democratic parties verified socials. And if you can't find that video on either,
and there's a good chance it's not real. But I think you can also consider whether that content perfectly fits a particular narrative being pushed by someone that it potentially could be too good to be true. And I also just want to say that this isn't about making you think that everything is fake. That is not what we're saying.
I think we're just talking about developing a healthy level of skepticism, not too much that you completely distrust everything you see, but enough to stop and consider where this content is from. Could it be fake or manipulated? And if you're basing your opinion on this video that you're seeing, should you be checking whether there is a primary source?
Now, Billy, I just want to end back. I guess where we started with a discussion about it here in Australia. Are there laws that regulate this sort of behavior here?
Yeah, our audience has asked us a lot about this, and essentially the answer is that there is nothing that prohibits the use of AI in election campaigns. Also remembering that this is quite new technology. There is, however, regulation about campaign communication, so you know, information coming from the Labor Party directly or the Liberal Party or whatever party
or political candidate, that communication is regulated. But as we saw in many of the examples above, the deep fakes that are misleading voters aren't usually coming from political parties directly. They're coming from other third party actors who perhaps have a certain agenda to push. It is a criminal offense in the Electoral Act to mislead or deceive an elector.
When it comes to casting a vote. But again, this.
Becomes harder to apply to videos posted on random accounts where the exact source of that video or image is not known.
Look a really complex area, and especially as it interacts with election season. Definitely one that we have to keep an eye on and one that will continue to keep speaking about.
So thank you for taking us through that.
Billy, Thank you.
We'll be back again tomorrow morning with a deep dive as usual, but until then, enjoy your weekend.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Kalkadin woman from Gadighl Country.
The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.