One hundred years ago, just a few days before a British general election, the Daily Mail published a sensational letter purportedly written by Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Communist International. The paper claimed that it revealed “a great Bolshevik plot to paralyse the British army and navy and to plunge the country into civil war”, and showed that the Labour government’s real masters were in Moscow. It probably contributed to Labour’s defeat. An official investigation in the 1990s found it was forged by an MI6 agent’s source.
Political disinformation campaigns bolstered by fakes are nothing new, and the digital revolution has turbocharged them. But AI is further democratising disinformation – making it easier, cheaper and quicker than ever to produce forgeries. What once looked like an approaching threat is now an immediate issue. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said last week that faked audio supposed to capture him making incendiary remarks about Remembrance weekend almost caused serious disorder after it was widely shared by the far right. In January, a faked robocall, apparently from Joe Biden, urged Democrats not to vote in the New Hampshire primary. In a year that will see more than 40 national elections worldwide, the issue is likely to be evident as never before.
