AI-powered disinformation is spreading — is Canada ready for the political impact?

Just days before Slovakia's national election last fall, a mysterious voice recording began spreading a lie online.

The manipulated file made it sound like Michal Simecka, leader of the Progressive Slovakia party, was discussing buying votes with a local journalist. But the conversation never happened; the file was later debunked as a "deepfake" hoax. 

On election day, Simecka lost to the pro-Kremlin populist candidate Robert Fico in a tight race.

While it's nearly impossible to determine whether the deepfake file contributed to the final results, the incident points to growing fears about the effect products of artificial intelligence are having on democracy around the world — and in Canada.

"This is what we fear ... that there could be a foreign interference so grave that then the electoral roll results are brought into question," Caroline Xavier, head of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) — Canada's cyber intelligence agency — told CBC News.

"We know that misinformation and disinformation is already a threat to democratic processes. This will potentially add to that amplification. That is quite concerning."

Those concerns are playing out around the world this year in what's being described as democracy's biggest test in decades.

Billions of people in more than 40 countries are voting in elections this year — including what's expected to be a bitterly disputed U.S. presidential contest. Canadians could be headed to the polls this year or next, depending on how much longer the Liberal government's deal with the NDP holds up.

"I don't think anybody is really ready," said Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley specializing in digital forensics.

Farid said he sees two main threats emerging from the collision of generative AI content and politics. The first is its effect on politicians — on their ability to deny reality.

"If your prime minister or your president or your candidate gets caught saying something actually offensive or illegal … you don't have to cop to anything anymore," he said.

"That's worrisome to me, where nobody has to be held accountable for anything they say or do anymore, because there's the spectre of deepfakes hanging over us."

The second threat, he said, is already playing out: the spread of fake content designed to harm individual candidates.

"If you're trying to create a 10 second hot mic of the prime minister saying something inappropriate, that'll take me two minutes to do. And very little money and very little effort and very little skill," Farid said.