Rep. Cammack concerned about AI's impact on 2024 election: 'Critical issue'
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced the establishment of a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Task Force in February.
The task force's members, including Florida Republican Kat Cammack, have already had a few organizational meetings and met with AI leaders to discuss, among other topics, November's election.
"This is a critical issue that is going to really have an impact in every aspect of our lives, from here moving forward into the future," Cammack told Fox News Digital.
"I think [members are] pretty much on the same page as far as we recognize both the challenges but also the opportunities that come with AI. … Folks on the task force have a very pragmatic, forward-thinking, optimistic view of AI. But we are not blind to the fact that there are challenges"
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Cammack says one of the immediate concerns of the task force is the impact AI will have in the 2024 election.
AI image tools generate election disinformation 41% of the time, and AI tools generate images promoting voting disinformation 59% of the time, according to a recent report published by the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
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Cammack says the task force is "looking [to identify] some of the challenges that people are opening with AI-generated content, disclaimers [about] what that will mean in terms of deepfakes, how do we authenticate and watermark AI-generated content, images, videos, etc."
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The Center for Countering Digital Hate report found examples of image disinformation, such as a photo of President Biden sick in a hospital bed and a photo of former President Trump sitting in a jail cell.
Tech giant Meta requires paid users to disclose when potentially misleading AI-generated or altered content is featured in political, electoral or social issue ads.
"You'll have all these discussions about [how content] should be watermarked. … We've already seen where AI can take off a watermark on an AI-generated product. That's just a Band-Aid," Cammack said. "We need to get to the root solution and establish a protocol in place that will prevent mass confusion."
Cammack says she and her team are working on a framework that would allow for a blockchain authentication model to exist.
"I see blockchain as a future mechanism to help authenticate material, and that will be really important for candidates and for legislators in such a rapid environment. Having your photos, your videos, all of your content authenticated with a very secure technology like blockchain, that will be very, very important," she said.
The Florida Republican said the task force should be wary of the overregulation of artificial intelligence, saying her focus will be to protect access in the marketplace for some of the smaller players and ensure there is no bias.
"The worst thing government can do is stamp out innovation through overregulation. My hope is to really address some of the language model challenges on the front end to make sure that we're weeding out bias. We're not inherently pushing answers to fit a political agenda," she said.
