When the World Economic Forum says, as it did in its Global Risks Report for 2024, released this week, that “misinformation and disinformation driven by artificial intelligence ahead of elections in major economies” is the biggest global risk in 2024 and 2025, what is it really saying?
Well, clearly, if one is worried about misinformation and disinformation impacting elections, one is worried about the potential results of those elections. Where else is the impact on elections measured, except in the count?
One might therefore consider it the new, and acceptable, way, for global bodies to say “we are worried that the wrong people might win elections in major economies”.
Coincidentally, you might have heard that there is a US Presidential election in 2024.
Further, per our friends at the Journal, the WEF is deeply worried that the alleged spread of AI-driven misinformation “may undermine the legitimacy of newly elected governments”.
This is a statement that could be taken two ways: First, it could be taken as the expression of a fear that victories in elections for Governments that the WEF might approve of might be considered illegitimate by voters in the countries in which they win. The template for this would, evidently, be a Biden victory in November which was called fraudulent or illegitimate (as it almost certainly would be, if past is any guide) by Trump.
Second, it could be read in a more sinister way: The expression of a conviction that a victory for Governments that the WEF might not approve of might have to be, with great reluctance you understand, considered to be illegitimate by the rest of the international community. After all, as all decent people know, things like a Trump victory or Brexit can only happen if the public have been fooled by dastardly actors manipulating them and feeding them misinformation.
As to which of these readings is correct, we will doubtless find out in time. I suspect both are correct, depending on what actually happens.
Of course, there’s a fundamental problem here, which is that worrying about the spread of misinformation and disinformation is highly related to what one considers to be misinformation and disinformation in the first place. In Ireland, we’re well aware of that problem: After all in recent days, the Taoiseach has declared – presumably by accident and the difficulty remembering what the official and ever-changing line is these days – a statement of his own from 2019 to be “a far right myth”.
Further, presuming that “misinformation” and “disinformation” can be regulated necessarily requires us to place our faith in people, and invest great power in people, to determine what constitutes both. Here’s a simple question: Why should anyone trust the World Economic Forum, for example, to decide what is misinformation and what is truth? Why should anyone trust me to do so? Or trust our friends at the Journal, or RTE?
“Truth”, says Iain MacDiarmid’s character in Star Wars, “is a point of view”. That is not necessarily true in all cases, but it is certainly true in many cases, particularly when controversial issues are being discussed. We know that from the case of our own island – ask two people from the Shankill and Falls roads in Belfast to provide a narrative of the last fifty years in Northern Ireland based on an identical set of facts, and you will get two completely different versions of the truth. The purpose of politics is to resolve and arbitrate between those two versions of the same facts.
Many western democracies are currently wrestling, in addition, with questions that have never before been questions: No generation before ours, in all of human history, has had to ask itself what a woman is. Now the topic is one of hot debate, all of a sudden. And one side of that debate is very keen indeed on suppressing “misinformation”. In fact, “gender” is to become a protected characteristic should Ireland’s proposed hate speech law ever pass, suggesting that it may soon be considered a form of misinformation or disinformation to publicly express belief in the same definition of womankind adopted by every human generation since we left the swamp.
There’s another thing to say here: The WEF explicitly connects fears about misinformation to Artificial Intelligence – but this is nothing new. Almost every new communications medium in human history has resulted in the spread of new ideas an arguments, and been feared by those with an established control over existing communications mechanisms. There would likely never have been a protestant reformation, without the printing press. Or a sexual revolution, without the advent of privately operated television and radio. Or, at least arguably, the rise of “woke” ideology, absent social media.
In worrying about the power of AI to change elections, the WEF is expressing another truth articulated by the aforementioned Galactic Emperor: All those who gain power are afraid to lose it.
When the WEF says, therefore, that misinformation and disinformation is the biggest global risk, the obvious follow-up question is “risk to whom?” And the answer – the inescapable answer – is “risk to the kind of people who’ll be in Davos next week for the World Economic Forum”.
When they say they would like to combat misinformation, they are saying they would like to regulate what you read, what you watch, what you hear, and what you consume. They would like you to believe that this is all for your own good, and for the global good. Which is why, as you watch the globe’s wealthiest people descent on Davos next week, you should probably have a long think about whether they are, truly, mostly concerned about your interests, rather than their own.