The United Nations recently released a report, “Information Integrity on Digital Platforms,” raising concerns about the use of AI-generated deepfakes to spread hate and misinformation on social media. In the report, the UN stressed the importance of responsible AI use, noting that, while it holds significant potential to address global challenges, advances in artificial intelligence also present risks to information integrity.
Information integrity refers to the accuracy, consistency, and reliability of information. The UN suggests that it is threatened by factors such as disinformation, misinformation, and hate speech, accounting for the rapid advancements in technology, like generative artificial intelligence. UN Secretary-General Guterres has called for an end to “business as usual.”
Generative AI is often presented as a chatbot capable of generating text, images, or other media in response to prompts providing seemingly endless possibilities and alarming drawbacks. The UN report highlighted concerns over deepfakes and AI-generated misinformation, particularly their impact in conflict zones, where hate speech often precedes heinous crimes, such as genocide.
The report also noted the significance of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, emphasizing the prohibition of incitement leading to genocide. Although specific examples were not cited, the report alluded to recent instances of generative AI being employed to create convincingly misleading content and images.
One such case occurred in March, when an AI-generated image of former President Donald Trump being arrested went viral after being tweeted by Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins. Another example involved Midjourney, a text-to-image AI generator. The company halted its free trial version due to widespread abuse.
The UN urged stakeholders to implement measures that ensure the safe, secure, responsible, ethical, and human rights-compliant use of artificial intelligence. The organization called on digital platform owners to invest in content moderation systems, using both human and artificial intelligence for all languages used in the countries they operate in. Additionally, the UN emphasized the need for transparent content reporting.
According to the UN, the era of Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” philosophy must end. User privacy, security, and transparency should be built into new technology from the start, emphasizing that these challenges can only be faced through stronger international cooperation. Secretary-General Guterres mentioned the upcoming Summit of the Future in 2024 as an opportunity to agree on multilateral solutions for responsible AI use and tackling information integrity-related issues.
Source: Decrypt
