Politicians were dealt a warning this morning about the potential disruptive power of AI in the next general election.
Labour aides were forced to deny that Sir Keir Starmer had been recorded losing his temper in a sweary outburst as a video went viral that sounded exactly like him.
In the video posted on X, over a din “Keir Starmer” could be heard ranting: “That f***ing tablet. F***s sake, I literally told you didn’t I? F***s sake.
“Bloody moron. No, I’m sick of it, I’m sick of it, I’m f***ing sick of it. Every single time!
“Just shut your f***ing mouth. F***ing idiot.”
At first, Labour aides appeared indignant at having to issue a denial that the recording was genuine. However, as it has accrued more than 764,000 views on the Elon Musk-owned platform at the time of writing, they eventually issued a categorical denial.
Former Labour MP George Galloway was one X user seemingly sucked into believing that the recording was real.
This afternoon top Tory Sir Simon Clarke came to Sir Keir Starmer’s rescue, telling his followers to “ignore” the deep fake video.
He added that it’s a “reminder why the upcoming AI summit organised by the Prime Minister is so important”.
He said: “From the Slovakian elections a few days ago to today’s incident, this is a new threat to democracy.”
Sir Simon referenced a scandal in Slovakia earlier this week, an audio recording was posted to Facebook, supposedly of the Liberal party leader discussing with a journalist how to rig the election.
Politicians across the world are concerned about the impact deepfake videos can and will have in upcoming elections.
Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Centre for Technology Innovation, Darrel West, has warned that voters in the US will find it “very difficult… to distinguish the real from the fake”.
He said: “You could just imagine how either Trump supporters or Biden supporters could use this technology to make the opponent look bad.
“There could be things that drop right before the election that nobody has a chance to take down.”
Rishi Sunak will host a global AI summit from Bletchley Park in early November.
International governments, AI companies and research experts will unite for what the Government has described as “crucial talks” on the “safe development and use of frontier AI technology”.
Mr Sunak said: “The UK has long been home to the transformative technologies of the future, so there is no better place to host the first-ever global AI safety summit than at Bletchley Park this November.
“To fully embrace the extraordinary opportunities of artificial intelligence, we must grip and tackle the risks to ensure it develops safely in the years ahead.
“With the combined strength of our international partners, thriving AI industry and expert academic community, we can secure the rapid international action we need for the safe and responsible development of AI around the world.”
