Craig Forman’s Post

Post journos wasting time investigating their own when they should be investigating fascists at the door. My unsolicited advice to Bezos: Fire Lewis' Gang of Four for cause. Rehire Kevin Merida as editor and tech-savvy Craig Forman as CEO. Clean house. Start over.https://https://lnkd.in/e9p6cvyC

Center for News, Technology & Innovation - CNTI continues to grow! So pleased to announce Lia Merivaki as CNTI’s Sr. Research Manager. Lia brings a terrific mix of skills from rigorous research exhibited at Georgetown’s Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, Mississippi State University, Tufts and more, expertise in the field of Election Science including work with the The Carter Center US Election Team as well as global perspective and Greek heritage. The CNTI community will benefit greatly from Lia’s skills as she manages our ambitious research initiatives - which we we sharing widely as they come to fruition. I look forward to many of getting to know Lia in the coming weeks and months - thank you for welcoming Lia to the team. https://lnkd.in/epZ5Ze87

This week I moderated a superstar panel at CogX to discuss elections in the age of AI. With elections happening in 80+ countries this year amidst a generative AI revolution that puts powerful creation tools in the hands of bad actors worldwide, humanity is running a global social experiment in real time: can we curb the harms that AI could inflict on democracy and societal trust while leveraging those same tools to ensure that self-government can thrive in the 21st century? Some of my takeaways: 💡The threats are real. Awareness is half the battle.💡 Deepfakes, massive waves of misinformation, AI-enabled micro-targeted "October surprises"—imagine your uncle's local pastor “calling” him to inform him of an active shooter at his specific polling location, suggesting that he stay home and rest assured that he can vote tomorrow instead. We’ve seen early versions of that already - expect much more. Mara Abrams spoke about the need to prepare voters for what’s coming—and that starts with every one of us preparing our friends and family. 💡This is a shared responsibility.💡 There’s no government body coming to save us here, and we don’t (yet?) have meaningful policies in place to guide ethical AI development (Europe’s AI Act is a good start). AI developers must accept some responsibility for what’s created using their models (including the open-source models they release). Craig Forman cited the voice cloning company Respeecher as an example of a company with strong ethical principles (link in comments) that help to ensure their tech doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. 💡A glimmer of hope: have we reached peak bulls*t?💡 Karen Mcluskie highlighted that despite significant attempts at AI-driven persuasion—including in Taiwan's recent elections—these tactics have yet to decisively sway electoral outcomes. Is it *possible* that we’ve nearly reached peak information insanity, and the coming misinformation storms won’t move the needle all that much? We also discussed the difference between efforts at *persuasion* vs. those aimed at *sowing distrust and disengagement in the democratic process itself* (the latter scares me far more). 💡We need tech solutions.💡 The coming AI wave isn’t slowing down, so we need equally powerful AI tools to confront the worst threats to our discourse and elections. Sedale Turbovsky told us about what he's building at SHFT to track and combat misinformation as it’s spreading, and shared his optimism that we can build solutions to “de-inflame” our citizen base and promote healthier dialogue. As usual, though, it’s going to come down to business models and incentives...how can we get those right moving forward? This is an all-hands-on-deck moment to prove that democracy can thrive in the 21st century - let's rise to the occasion. The worst thing we can do is disengage. Big thanks to Jeremy Boxer, Charlie Muirhead, and CogX for featuring this critical subject at their inaugural conference in LA.

This week I moderated a superstar panel at CogX to discuss elections in the age of AI. With elections happening in 80+ countries this year amidst a generative AI revolution that puts powerful creation tools in the hands of bad actors worldwide, humanity is running a global social experiment in real time: can we curb the harms that AI could inflict on democracy and societal trust while leveraging those same tools to ensure that self-government can thrive in the 21st century? Some of my takeaways: 💡The threats are real. Awareness is half the battle.💡 Deepfakes, massive waves of misinformation, AI-enabled micro-targeted "October surprises"—imagine your uncle's local pastor “calling” him to inform him of an active shooter at his specific polling location, suggesting that he stay home and rest assured that he can vote tomorrow instead. We’ve seen early versions of that already - expect much more. Mara Abrams spoke about the need to prepare voters for what’s coming—and that starts with every one of us preparing our friends and family. 💡This is a shared responsibility.💡 There’s no government body coming to save us here, and we don’t (yet?) have meaningful policies in place to guide ethical AI development (Europe’s AI Act is a good start). AI developers must accept some responsibility for what’s created using their models (including the open-source models they release). Craig Forman cited the voice cloning company Respeecher as an example of a company with strong ethical principles (link in comments) that help to ensure their tech doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. 💡A glimmer of hope: have we reached peak bulls*t?💡 Karen Mcluskie highlighted that despite significant attempts at AI-driven persuasion—including in Taiwan's recent elections—these tactics have yet to decisively sway electoral outcomes. Is it *possible* that we’ve nearly reached peak information insanity, and the coming misinformation storms won’t move the needle all that much? We also discussed the difference between efforts at *persuasion* vs. those aimed at *sowing distrust and disengagement in the democratic process itself* (the latter scares me far more). 💡We need tech solutions.💡 The coming AI wave isn’t slowing down, so we need equally powerful AI tools to confront the worst threats to our discourse and elections. Sedale Turbovsky told us about what he's building at SHFT to track and combat misinformation as it’s spreading, and shared his optimism that we can build solutions to “de-inflame” our citizen base and promote healthier dialogue. As usual, though, it’s going to come down to business models and incentives...how can we get those right moving forward? This is an all-hands-on-deck moment to prove that democracy can thrive in the 21st century - let's rise to the occasion. The worst thing we can do is disengage. Big thanks to Jeremy Boxer, Charlie Muirhead, and CogX for featuring this critical subject at their inaugural conference in LA.