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    La IA hace campaña en las elecciones de Argentina

    Los afiches que salpican las calles de Buenos Aires tienen un cierto toque soviético.Había uno de Sergio Massa, uno de los candidatos presidenciales de Argentina, vestido con una camisa con lo que parecían ser medallas militares, señalando a un cielo azul. Lo rodeaban cientos de personas mayores —con atuendos monótonos, rostros serios y a menudo desfigurados— que lo miraban con esperanza.El estilo no era un error. El ilustrador había recibido instrucciones claras.“Ilustración de afiche de propaganda política soviética de Gustav Klutsis con un líder, masssa, de pie y firme”, decía un mensaje que la campaña de Massa introdujo en un programa de inteligencia artificial para producir la imagen. “Símbolos de unidad y poder llenan el entorno”, continuaba el comando o prompt. “La imagen irradia autoridad y determinación”.Javier Milei, el otro candidato en la segunda vuelta electoral del domingo, ha contraatacado compartiendo lo que parecen ser imágenes creadas con inteligencia artificial que representan a Massa como un líder comunista chino y a sí mismo como un adorable león de dibujos animados. Han sido vistas más de 30 millones de veces.Las elecciones argentinas se han convertido rápidamente en un campo de pruebas para la inteligencia artificial en las campañas electorales, con los dos candidatos y sus partidarios empleando la tecnología para adulterar imágenes y videos existentes y crear otros desde cero.La inteligencia artificial ha hecho que los candidatos digan cosas que no decían y los ha colocado en películas y memes famosos. Ha generado carteles de campaña y desencadenado debates sobre si los videos reales son efectivamente reales.El papel destacado de la inteligencia artificial en la campaña de Argentina y el debate político que ha suscitado subrayan la creciente prevalencia de la tecnología y demuestran que, con su creciente poder y su costo cada vez menor, es probable que ahora sea un factor en muchas elecciones democráticas de todo el mundo.Los expertos comparan este momento con los primeros días de las redes sociales, una tecnología que ofrece nuevas y tentadoras herramientas para la política, así como amenazas imprevistas.La campaña de Massa ha creado un sistema de inteligencia artificial que puede crear imágenes y videos de muchos de los principales protagonistas de las elecciones —los candidatos, los compañeros de fórmula, los aliados políticos— haciendo una gran variedad de cosas.La campaña ha usado inteligencia artificial para retratar a Massa, el serio ministro de Economía de centroizquierda, como fuerte, intrépido y carismático, incluyendo videos que lo muestran como soldado en una guerra, un Cazafantasmas e Indiana Jones, así como afiches que evocan al cartel “Hope” de la campaña de 2008 de Barack Obama y a una portada de The New Yorker.La campaña también ha usado al sistema para retratar al candidato oponente, Milei —un economista libertario de extrema derecha y figura televisiva conocida por sus arrebatos—, como inestable, colocándolo en películas como La naranja mecánica y Pánico y locura en Las Vegas.Mucho del contenido ha sido claramente falso. Pero un puñado de creaciones pisaron la línea de la desinformación. La campaña de Massa produjo un video ultrafalso, conocido como deepfake en inglés, en el cual Milei explica cómo funcionaría un mercado de órganos humanos, algo que él ha dicho que filosóficamente encaja con sus opiniones libertarias.“Imaginate tener hijos y pensar que cada uno de ellos es como una inversión a largo plazo. No en el sentido tradicional, sino pensando en el potencial económico de sus órganos en el futuro”, dice la imagen manipulada de Milei en el video falsificado, publicado por la campaña de Massa en su cuenta de Instagram para inteligencia artificial llamado IAxlaPatria.La leyenda de la publicación dice: “Le pedimos a una Inteligencia Artificial que lo ayude a Javier a explicar el negocio de la venta de órganos y esto sucedió”.En una entrevista, Massa dijo que la primera vez que vio lo que la inteligencia artificial podía hacer se quedó impactado. “No tenía la cabeza preparada para el mundo que me iba a tocar vivir a mí”, dijo. “Es un enorme desafío, estamos arriba de un caballo al que tenemos que cabalgar y no le conocemos las mañas”.The New York Times entonces le mostró el ultrafalso que su campaña había creado en donde aparece Milei hablando de los órganos humanos. Pareció perturbado. “Sobre ese uso no estoy de acuerdo”, dijo.Su vocero luego recalcó que la publicación era en broma y que estaba claramente etiquetada como generada por inteligencia artificial. Su campaña aseguró en un comunicado que su uso de la tecnología es para divertir y hacer observaciones políticas, no para engañar.Los investigadores hace tiempo que han expresado preocupación por los efectos de la IA en las elecciones. La tecnología tiene la capacidad de confundir y engañar a los votantes, crear dudas sobre lo que es real y añadir desinformación que puede propagarse por las redes sociales.Durante años, dichos temores han sido de carácter especulativo puesto que la tecnología para producir contenidos falsos de ese tipo era demasiado complicada, costosa y burda.“Ahora hemos visto esta total explosión de conjuntos de herramientas increíblemente accesibles y cada vez más potentes que se han democratizado, y esa apreciación ha cambiado de manera radical”, dijo Henry Ajder, experto afincado en Inglaterra que ha brindado asesoría a gobiernos sobre contenido generado con IA.Este año, un candidato a la alcaldía de Toronto empleó imágenes de personas sin hogar generadas por IA de tono sombrío para insinuar cómo sería Toronto si no resultaba electo. En Estados Unidos, el Partido Republicano publicó un video creado con IA que muestra a China invadiendo Taiwán y otras escenas distópicas para ilustrar lo que supuestamente sucedería si el presidente Biden ganara la reelección.Y la campaña del gobernador de Florida, Ron DeSantis, compartió un video que mostraba imágenes generadas por IA donde aparece Donald Trump abrazando a Anthony Fauci, el médico que se ha convertido en enemigo de la derecha estadounidense por su papel como líder de la respuesta nacional frente a la pandemia.Hasta ahora, el contenido generado por IA compartido por las campañas en Argentina ha sido etiquetado para identificar su origen o es una falsificación tan evidente que es poco probable que engañe incluso a los votantes más crédulos. Más bien, la tecnología ha potenciado la capacidad de crear contenido viral que antiguamente habría requerido el trabajo de equipos enteros de diseñadores gráficos durante días o semanas.Meta, la empresa dueña de Facebook e Instagram, dijo esta semana que iba a exigir que los avisos políticos indiquen si usaron IA. Otras publicaciones no pagadas en sitios que emplean esa tecnología, incluso relacionados con política, no iban a requerir indicar tal información. La Comisión Federal de Elecciones en EE. UU. también está evaluando si va a regular el uso de IA en propaganda política.El Instituto de Diálogo Estratégico, un grupo de investigación con sede en Londres que estudia las plataformas de internet, firmó una carta en la que se hace un llamado a implementar este tipo de regulaciones. Isabelle Frances-Wright, la directora de tecnología y sociedad del grupo, comentó que el uso extenso de IA en las elecciones argentinas era preocupante.“Sin duda considero que es un terreno resbaladizo”, dijo. “De aquí a un año lo que ya se ve muy real solo lo parecerá más”.La campaña de Massa dijo que decidió usar IA en un esfuerzo por mostrar que el peronismo, el movimiento político de 78 años de antigüedad que respalda a Massa, es capaz de atraer a los votantes jóvenes al rodear la imagen de Massa de cultura pop y de memes.Imagen generada con IA por la campaña de MassaPara lograrlo, ingenieros y artistas de la campaña subieron a un programa de código abierto llamado Stable Diffusion fotografías de distintas figuras políticas argentinas a fin de entrenar a su sistema de IA para que creara imágenes falsas de esas personas reales. Ahora pueden producir con rapidez una imagen o un video en donde aparezcan más de una decena de notables personalidades de la política de Argentina haciendo prácticamente lo que le indiquen.Durante la campaña, el equipo de comunicación de Massa instruyó a los artistas que trabajaban con la IA de la campaña sobre los mensajes o emociones que deseaban suscitar con las imágenes, por ejemplo: unidad nacional, valores familiares o miedo. Los artistas luego hacían lluvia de ideas para insertar a Massa o a Milei, así como a otros políticos, en contenido que evoca películas, memes, estilos artísticos o momentos históricos.Para Halloween, la campaña de Massa le pidió a su IA que creara una serie de imágenes caricaturescas de Milei y sus aliados en donde parecieran zombis. La campaña también empleó IA para crear un tráiler cinematográfico dramático en donde aparece Buenos Aires en llamas, Milei como un villano malvado en una camisa de fuerza y Massa en el papel del héroe que va a salvar el país.Las imágenes de IA también han hecho su aparición en el mundo real. Los afiches soviéticos estuvieron entre las decenas de diseños que campaña y seguidores de Massa imprimieron y pegaron en los espacios públicos de Argentina.Algunas imágenes fueron generadas por la IA de la campaña mientras que otras fueron creadas por simpatizantes que usaron IA, entre ellas una de las más conocidas, una en la que Massa monta un caballo al estilo de José de San Martín, héroe de la independencia argentina.“Massa estaba muy acartonado”, dijo Octavio Tome, organizador comunitario que ayudó a crear la imagen. “Esa imagen da un Massa con impronta jefe. Hay algo muy fuerte de la argentinidad”.Simpatizantes de Massa colocaron afiches generados con IA en donde aparece como el prócer de la independencia argentina José de San Martín.Sarah Pabst para The New York TimesEl surgimiento de la inteligencia artificial en las elecciones argentinas también ha causado que algunos votantes duden de la realidad. Luego de que la semana pasada circuló un video en donde se veía a Massa exhausto tras un acto de campaña, sus críticos lo acusaron de estar drogado. Sus seguidores rápidamente respondieron que el video en realidad era un deepfake.No obstante, su campaña confirmó que el video era, en efecto, real.Massa comentó que la gente ya estaba usando la tecnología para intentar encubrir errores del pasado o escándalos. “Es muy fácil escudarse en la inteligencia artificial cuando aparecen cosas que dijiste y no querías que se supieran”, dijo Massa en la entrevista.Al principio de la contienda, Patricia Bullrich, una candidata que no logró pasar a la segunda vuelta, intentó explicar que eran falsas unas grabaciones de audio filtradas en donde su asesor económico le ofrecía trabajo a una mujer a cambio de sexo. “Te hacen voces con inteligencia artificial, te recortan videos, te meten audios que nadie sabe de dónde salen”, dijo.No está claro si los audios eran falsos o reales.Jack Nicas es el jefe de la corresponsalía en Brasil, que abarca Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. Anteriormente reportó sobre tecnología desde San Francisco y, antes de integrarse al Times en 2018, trabajó siete años en The Wall Street Journal. Más de Jack Nicas More

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    Is Argentina the First A.I. Election?

    The posters dotting the streets of Buenos Aires had a certain Soviet flare to them.There was one of Argentina’s presidential candidates, Sergio Massa, dressed in a shirt with what appeared to be military medals, pointing to a blue sky. He was surrounded by hundreds of older people — in drab clothing, with serious, and often disfigured, faces — looked toward him in hope.The style was no mistake. The illustrator had been given clear instructions.“Sovietic Political propaganda poster illustration by Gustav Klutsis featuring a leader, masssa, standing firmly,” said a prompt that Mr. Massa’s campaign fed into an artificial-intelligence program to produce the image. “Symbols of unity and power fill the environment,” the prompt continued. “The image exudes authority and determination.”Javier Milei, the other candidate in Sunday’s runoff election, has struck back by sharing what appear to be A.I. images depicting Mr. Massa as a Chinese communist leader and himself as a cuddly cartoon lion. They have been viewed more than 30 million times.Argentina’s election has quickly become a testing ground for A.I. in campaigns, with the two candidates and their supporters employing the technology to doctor existing images and videos and create others from scratch.A.I. has made candidates say things they did not, and put them in famous movies and memes. It has created campaign posters, and triggered debates over whether real videos are actually real.A.I.’s prominent role in Argentina’s campaign and the political debate it has set off underscore the technology’s growing prevalence and show that, with its expanding power and falling cost, it is now likely to be a factor in many democratic elections around the globe.Experts compare the moment to the early days of social media, a technology offering tantalizing new tools for politics — and unforeseen threats.Mr. Massa’s campaign has created an A.I. system that can create images and videos of many of the election’s main players — the candidates, running mates, political allies — doing a wide variety of things. The campaign has used A.I. to portray Mr. Massa, Argentina’s staid center-left economy minister, as strong, fearless and charismatic, including videos that show him as a soldier in war, a Ghostbuster and Indiana Jones, as well as posters that evoke Barack Obama’s 2008 “Hope” poster and a cover of The New Yorker.The campaign has also used the system to depict his opponent, Mr. Milei — a far-right libertarian economist and television personality known for outbursts — as unstable, putting him in films like “Clockwork Orange” and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”Much of the content has been clearly fake. But a few creations have toed the line of disinformation. The Massa campaign produced one “deepfake” video in which Mr. Milei explains how a market for human organs would work, something he has said philosophically fits in with his libertarian views.“Imagine having kids and thinking that each is a long-term investment. Not in the traditional sense, but thinking of the economic potential of their organs,” says the manipulated image of Mr. Milei in the fabricated video, posted by the Massa campaign on its Instagram account for A.I. content, called “A.I. for the Homeland.”The post’s caption says, “We asked an Artificial Intelligence to help Javier explain the business of selling organs and this happened.”In an interview, Mr. Massa said he was shocked the first time he saw what A.I. could do. “I didn’t have my mind prepared for the world that I’m going to live in,” he said. “It’s a huge challenge. We’re on a horse that we have to ride but we still don’t know its tricks.”The New York Times then showed him the deepfake his campaign created of Mr. Milei and human organs. He appeared disturbed. “I don’t agree with that use,” he said.His spokesman later stressed that the post was in jest and clearly labeled A.I.-generated. His campaign said in a statement that its use of A.I. is to entertain and make political points, not deceive.Researchers have long worried about the impact of A.I. on elections. The technology can deceive and confuse voters, casting doubt over what is real, adding to the disinformation that can be spread by social networks.For years, those fears had largely been speculative because the technology to produce such fakes was too complicated, expensive and unsophisticated.“Now we’ve seen this absolute explosion of incredibly accessible and increasingly powerful democratized tool sets, and that calculation has radically changed,” said Henry Ajder, an expert based in England who has advised governments on A.I.-generated content.This year, a mayoral candidate in Toronto used gloomy A.I.-generated images of homeless people to telegraph what Toronto would turn into if he weren’t elected. In the United States, the Republican Party posted a video created with A.I. that shows China invading Taiwan and other dystopian scenes to depict what it says would happen if President Biden wins a second term.And the campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida shared a video showing A.I.-generated images of Donald J. Trump hugging Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who has become an enemy on the American right for his role leading the nation’s pandemic response.So far, the A.I.-generated content shared by the campaigns in Argentina has either been labeled A.I. generated or is so clearly fabricated that it is unlikely it would deceive even the most credulous voters. Instead, the technology has supercharged the ability to create viral content that previously would have taken teams of graphic designers days or weeks to complete.Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, said this week that it would require political ads to disclose whether they used A.I. Other unpaid posts on the sites that use A.I., even if related to politics, would not be required to carry any disclosures. The U.S. Federal Election Commission is also considering whether to regulate the use of A.I. in political ads.The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based research group that studies internet platforms, signed a letter urging such regulations. Isabelle Frances-Wright, the group’s head of technology and society, said the extensive use of A.I. in Argentina’s election was worrisome.“I absolutely think it’s a slippery slope,” she said. “In a year from now, what already seems very realistic will only seem more so.” The Massa campaign said it decided to use A.I. in an effort to show that Peronism, the 78-year-old political movement behind Mr. Massa, can appeal to young voters by mixing Mr. Massa’s image with pop and meme culture.An A.I.-generated image created by Mr. Massa’s campaign.To do so, campaign engineers and artists fed photos of Argentina’s various political players into an open-source software called Stable Diffusion to train their own A.I. system so that it could create fake images of those real people. They can now quickly produce an image or video of more than a dozen top political players in Argentina doing almost anything they ask.During the campaign, Mr. Massa’s communications team has briefed artists working with the campaign’s A.I. on which messages or emotions they want the images to impart, such as national unity, family values and fear. The artists have then brainstormed ideas to put Mr. Massa or Mr. Milei, as well as other political figures, into content that references films, memes, artistic styles or moments in history.For Halloween, the Massa campaign told its A.I. to create a series of cartoonish images of Mr. Milei and his allies as zombies. The campaign also used A.I. to create a dramatic movie trailer, featuring Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, burning, Mr. Milei as an evil villain in a straitjacket and Mr. Massa as the hero who will save the country.The A.I. images have also shown up in the real world. The Soviet posters were one of the dozens of designs that Mr. Massa’s campaign and supporters printed to post across Argentina’s public spaces.Some images were generated by the campaign’s A.I., while others were created by supporters using A.I., including one of the most well-known, an image of Mr. Massa riding a horse in the style of José de San Martín, an Argentine independence hero. “Massa was too stiff,” said Octavio Tome, a community organizer who helped create the image. “We’re showing a boss-like Massa, and he’s very Argentine.”Supporters of Mr. Massa put up AI-generated posters depicting him in the style of José de San Martín, an Argentine independence hero.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesThe rise of A.I. in Argentina’s election has also made some voters question what is real. After a video circulated last week of Mr. Massa looking exhausted after a campaign event, his critics accused him of being on drugs. His supporters quickly struck back, claiming the video was actually a deepfake.His campaign confirmed, however, that the video was, in fact, real.Mr. Massa said people were already using A.I. to try to cover up past mistakes or scandals. “It’s very easy to hide behind artificial intelligence when something you said come out, and you didn’t want them to,” Mr. Massa said in the interview.Earlier in the race, Patricia Bullrich, a candidate who failed to qualify for the runoff, tried to explain away leaked audio recordings of her economic adviser offering a woman a job in exchange for sex by saying the recordings were fabricated. “They can fake voices, alter videos,” she said.Were the recordings real or fake? It’s unclear. More

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    A Gaza Father’s Worries About His Children

    More from our inbox:A Temporary House Speaker?Republicans, Stand Up for UkraineWork Permits for ImmigrantsIs A.I. Art … Art?An injured woman and her child after an Israeli bombing near their house in the Gaza Strip.Samar Abu Elouf for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?,” by Fadi Abu Shammalah (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 13):My heart goes out, and I cry over the suffering of Palestinian children in Gaza. They have done nothing to deserve war after war after war.However, to ignore Hamas’s responsibility for contributing to that suffering is to miss the whole picture. Hamas rules Gaza, and it has chosen to buy missiles and weapons with funds that were meant to build a better society for Gazan civilians.Last weekend’s attack was designed by Hamas to prompt a heavy response by Israel and stir up the pot, probably to kill a Saudi-Israeli peace deal, even if it meant sacrificing Palestinian civilians in the process. We can lay the blame for the Gazan children who have been killed in recent days at the feet of both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas.Aaron SteinbergWhite Plains, N.Y.To the Editor:Thank you for publishing Opinion guest essays from Rachel Goldberg (“I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy,” nytimes.com, Oct. 12) and Fadi Abu Shammalah. These essays, for the most part, demonstrate the dire disconnect between Israelis and Palestinians for decades.Ms. Goldberg and Mr. Abu Shammalah describe the horrors from their perspectives (terrorists or fighters; most vicious assaults on Jews since the Holocaust or terrifying violence raining down on Gaza).Despair is a shared theme in these articles. There is also a glimmer of hope found in the similar, heartbreaking pleas of loving parents for their children. Is now the time for mothers and fathers around the world to stand together for all children? If not now, when?Daniel J. CallaghanRoanoke, Va.To the Editor:Thank you for publishing Fadi Abu Shammalah’s essay. I’m hoping that hearing from a Palestinian in Gaza at this incredibly terrifying time might help your readers better understand the importance for all of us to call for immediate de-escalation to prevent Israel’s impending invasion.Shame on those who do not do what they can to prevent this assault on humanity. Let’s end this current horror show.Mona SalmaSan FranciscoTo the Editor:Regarding Fadi Abu Shammalah’s essay, “What More Must the Children of Gaza Suffer?”:Maybe Hamas should have considered that question before deciding to attack Israel.Jon DreyerStow, Mass.A Temporary House Speaker?Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, announcing his withdrawal as a candidate for House speaker on Thursday night. He hopes to remain as the party’s No. 2 House leader.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Scalise Departs Speaker’s Race as G.O.P. Feuds” (front page, Oct. 13):Given the urgent state of affairs (Israel-Gaza, Ukraine, looming government shutdown), wouldn’t it be a good idea for the Republicans in the House of Representatives to pick a temporary speaker? Someone who doesn’t want the job permanently but would take the role through, say, early January.One would think that having the speaker role be temporary would make it easier to arrive at a compromise.Shaun BreidbartPelham, N.Y.Republicans, Stand Up for Ukraine David Guttenfelder for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “G.O.P. Resistance to Aid in Ukraine Expands in House” (front page, Oct. 6):Where do Republicans stand? On the side of autocracy or democracy? Dare I ask? The Ukrainians are on the front lines, fighting and dying to preserve the values of the West. Republicans, stand up and be counted!Norman SasowskyNew Paltz, N.Y.Work Permits for Immigrants Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York TimesTo the Editor:In your Oct. 8 editorial, “The Cost of Inaction on Immigration,” you correctly identified one potential benefit from proactive immigration policies. If Congress were not so frozen by the anti-immigration fringe, immigrants could fill the urgent gaps in the American labor market and propel our economy forward.President Biden can and should also expand work permits for long-term undocumented immigrants using an existing administrative process called parole.The organization I lead, the American Business Immigration Coalition, published a letter on behalf of more than 300 business leaders from across the country and a bipartisan group of governors and members of Congress clamoring for this solution.The farmworkers, Dreamers not covered by DACA and undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens who stand to benefit already live and belong in our communities. The advantages for businesses and everyday life in our cities and fields would be enormous, and this should not be held hostage to dysfunction in Congress.Rebecca ShiChicagoIs A.I. Art … Art?A.I. Excels at Making Bad Art. Can an Artist Teach It to Create Something Good?David Salle, one of America’s most thoughtful painters, wants to see if an algorithm can learn to mimic his style — and nourish his own creativity in the process.To the Editor:Re “Turning an Algorithm Into an Art Student” (Arts & Leisure, Oct. 1):A.I. art seems a commercially viable idea, but artistically it falls very far short of reasoned creativity and inspiration. When you remove the 95 percent perspiration from the artistic act, is it art anymore? I don’t think so.David Salle’s original work is inspired. The work produced by his A.I. assistant (no matter how much it is curated by the artist), I am afraid, will never be.I hope he makes money from it, as most artists don’t or can’t make a living with their inspired, personally or collectively produced art. They cannot because the market typically prefers a sanitized, digitized, broadly acceptable, “generically good” art product — something that has been produced and edited to satisfy the largest number of consumers/users/viewers. The market will embrace A.I. inevitably.I fear the day when A.I.-written operas, musicals, concerts and symphonies are performed by A.I. musicians in front of A.I. audiences. With A.I. critics writing A.I. reviews for A.I. readers of A.I. newspapers.Eric AukeeLos AngelesThe writer is an architect. More

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    Today’s Top News: Key Takeaways From the G.O.P. Debate, and More

    The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.The candidates mostly ignored former President Donald J. Trump’s overwhelming lead during the debate last night.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesOn Today’s Episode:5 Takeaways From Another Trump-Free Republican Debate, with Jonathan SwanMeet the A.I. Jane Austen: Meta Weaves A.I. Throughout Its Apps, with Mike IsaacHow Complete Was Stephen Sondheim’s Final Musical?, with Michael PaulsonEli Cohen More

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    Will Hurd Releases A.I. Plan, a First in the Republican Presidential Field

    The former Texas congressman’s plan takes an expansive view of both the potential and the risks of artificial intelligence, calling for it to be used more widely but also tightly regulated.The policy plan on artificial intelligence released by former Representative Will Hurd of Texas on Wednesday makes him the first candidate in the Republican presidential field to formally propose a way to navigate the uses and dangers of a technology so thorny he likened it to nuclear fission.“Nuclear fission controlled gives you nuclear power — clean, cheap, limitless power,” Mr. Hurd said in an interview with The New York Times. “Nuclear fission uncontrolled gives you nuclear weapons that can destroy the world. And I think A.I. is equivalent.”The plan, first reported by Axios, takes an expansive view of both the potential and the risks of artificial intelligence. He calls for A.I. to be used much more widely than it currently is — both in administrative tasks within the federal government and in highly sensitive areas like national defense — but also supports regulating the industry more tightly than is typical of many Republicans’ approach to private industries.Among his proposals are calls to ensure compensation when people’s intellectual property is used in A.I.-generated content, as well as name, image and likeness protections against so-called deepfakes. He would also seek to require permits for companies that want to build A.I. models and to impose “strict regulations” on exports of A.I. technology, and would reject any exemptions for developers from liability under existing laws.Artificial intelligence has already begun to change political campaigns themselves, with some operatives using it to write first drafts of fund-raising messages and automate tedious tasks — and to spread disinformation, including fake images of opponents.Mr. Hurd has struggled to gain traction in the Republican primary field. He did not qualify for the first debate in August because he failed to reach 1 percent support in enough polls, and he remains at risk of failing to meet the even higher thresholds to qualify for the second debate next week.But that he would be the first candidate to release a formal plan on artificial intelligence tracks with his professional background.He once worked as a senior adviser at a cybersecurity firm called FusionX, and made cybersecurity one of his main focuses as a legislator. He also led the House Oversight Subcommittee on Information Technology, where he organized hearings on artificial intelligence in 2018, long before it entered the mainstream. After leaving Congress in 2021, he joined the board of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence laboratory that developed ChatGPT.“Artificial intelligence is a technology that transcends borders,” Mr. Hurd said at the first congressional A.I. hearing in 2018. “We have allies and adversaries, both nation-states and individual hackers, who are pursuing artificial intelligence with all they have because dominance in artificial intelligence is a guaranteed leg up in the realm of geopolitics and economics.”His plan suggests employing A.I. tools within military, intelligence and border security agencies and using those tools to make the government “more responsive to the needs of everyday Americans.” He said in the interview that this could include using A.I. to issue passports and visas, summarize publicly available information for intelligence agencies, predict what federal support individual communities will need as a hurricane approaches and identify the cause of backlogs at poorly performing Veterans Affairs centers.Current A.I. models have a well-documented tendency to “hallucinate” and provide inaccurate or fabricated information. Mr. Hurd’s plan does not address that problem. He said he envisioned A.I. helping migrants learn English and helping students with math, and was “not as concerned” with hallucination in those contexts.“I think we can achieve the promise of A.I. while minimizing the risk,” he said. More

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    China Sows Disinformation About Hawaii Fires Using New Techniques

    Beijing’s influence campaign using artificial intelligence is a rapid change in tactics, researchers from Microsoft and other organizations say.When wildfires swept across Maui last month with destructive fury, China’s increasingly resourceful information warriors pounced.The disaster was not natural, they said in a flurry of false posts that spread across the internet, but was the result of a secret “weather weapon” being tested by the United States. To bolster the plausibility, the posts carried photographs that appeared to have been generated by artificial intelligence programs, making them among the first to use these new tools to bolster the aura of authenticity of a disinformation campaign.For China — which largely stood on the sidelines of the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections while Russia ran hacking operations and disinformation campaigns — the effort to cast the wildfires as a deliberate act by American intelligence agencies and the military was a rapid change of tactics.Until now, China’s influence campaigns have been focused on amplifying propaganda defending its policies on Taiwan and other subjects. The most recent effort, revealed by researchers from Microsoft and a range of other organizations, suggests that Beijing is making more direct attempts to sow discord in the United States.The move also comes as the Biden administration and Congress are grappling with how to push back on China without tipping the two countries into open conflict, and with how to reduce the risk that A.I. is used to magnify disinformation.The impact of the Chinese campaign — identified by researchers from Microsoft, Recorded Future, the RAND Corporation, NewsGuard and the University of Maryland — is difficult to measure, though early indications suggest that few social media users engaged with the most outlandish of the conspiracy theories.Brad Smith, the vice chairman and president of Microsoft, whose researchers analyzed the covert campaign, sharply criticized China for exploiting a natural disaster for political gain.“I just don’t think that’s worthy of any country, much less any country that aspires to be a great country,” Mr. Smith said in an interview on Monday.China was not the only country to make political use of the Maui fires. Russia did as well, spreading posts that emphasized how much money the United States was spending on the war in Ukraine and that suggested the cash would be better spent at home for disaster relief.The researchers suggested that China was building a network of accounts that could be put to use in future information operations, including the next U.S. presidential election. That is the pattern that Russia set in the year or so leading up to the 2016 election.“This is going into a new direction, which is sort of amplifying conspiracy theories that are not directly related to some of their interests, like Taiwan,” said Brian Liston, a researcher at Recorded Future, a cybersecurity company based in Massachusetts.A destroyed neighborhood in Lahaina, Hawaii, last month. China has made the wildfires a target of disinformation.Go Nakamura for The New York TimesIf China does engage in influence operations for the election next year, U.S. intelligence officials have assessed in recent months, it is likely to try to diminish President Biden and raise the profile of former President Donald J. Trump. While that may seem counterintuitive to Americans who remember Mr. Trump’s effort to blame Beijing for what he called the “China virus,” the intelligence officials have concluded that Chinese leaders prefer Mr. Trump. He has called for pulling Americans out of Japan, South Korea and other parts of Asia, while Mr. Biden has cut off China’s access to the most advanced chips and the equipment made to produce them.China’s promotion of a conspiracy theory about the fires comes after Mr. Biden vented in Bali last fall to Xi Jinping, China’s president, about Beijing’s role in the spread of such disinformation. According to administration officials, Mr. Biden angrily criticized Mr. Xi for the spread of false accusations that the United States operated biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine.There is no indication that Russia and China are working together on information operations, according to the researchers and administration officials, but they often echo each other’s messages, particularly when it comes to criticizing U.S. policies. Their combined efforts suggest a new phase of the disinformation wars is about to begin, one bolstered by the use of A.I. tools.“We don’t have direct evidence of coordination between China and Russia in these campaigns, but we’re certainly finding alignment and a sort of synchronization,” said William Marcellino, a researcher at RAND and an author of a new report warning that artificial intelligence will enable a “critical jump forward” in global influence operations.The wildfires in Hawaii — like many natural disasters these days — spawned numerous rumors, false reports and conspiracy theories almost from the start.Caroline Amy Orr Bueno, a researcher at the University of Maryland’s Applied Research Lab for Intelligence and Security, reported that a coordinated Russian campaign began on Twitter, the social media platform now known as X, on Aug. 9, a day after the fires started.It spread the phrase, “Hawaii, not Ukraine,” from one obscure account with few followers through a series of conservative or right-wing accounts like Breitbart and ultimately Russian state media, reaching thousands of users with a message intended to undercut U.S. military assistance to Ukraine.President Biden has criticized President Xi Jinping of China for the spread of false accusations about the United States and Ukraine.Florence Lo/ReutersChina’s state media apparatus often echoes Russian themes, especially animosity toward the United States. But in this case, it also pursued a distinct disinformation campaign.Recorded Future first reported that the Chinese government mounted a covert campaign to blame a “weather weapon” for the fires, identifying numerous posts in mid-August falsely claiming that MI6, the British foreign intelligence service, had revealed “the amazing truth behind the wildfire.” Posts with the exact language appeared on social media sites across the internet, including Pinterest, Tumblr, Medium and Pixiv, a Japanese site used by artists.Other inauthentic accounts spread similar content, often accompanied with mislabeled videos, including one from a popular TikTok account, The Paranormal Chic, that showed a transformer explosion in Chile. According to Recorded Future, the Chinese content often echoed — and amplified — posts by conspiracy theorists and extremists in the United States, including white supremacists.The Chinese campaign operated across many of the major social media platforms — and in many languages, suggesting it was aimed at reaching a global audience. Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center identified inauthentic posts in 31 languages, including French, German and Italian, but also in less prominent ones like Igbo, Odia and Guarani.The artificially generated images of the Hawaii wildfires identified by Microsoft’s researchers appeared on multiple platforms, including a Reddit post in Dutch. “These specific A.I.-generated images appear to be exclusively used” by Chinese accounts used in this campaign, Microsoft said in a report. “They do not appear to be present elsewhere online.”Clint Watts, the general manager of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center, said that China appeared to have adopted Russia’s playbook for influence operations, laying the groundwork to influence politics in the United States and other countries.“This would be Russia in 2015,” he said, referring to the bots and inauthentic accounts Russia created before its extensive online influence operation during the 2016 election. “If we look at how other actors have done this, they are building capacity. Now they’re building accounts that are covert.”Natural disasters have often been the focus of disinformation campaigns, allowing bad actors to exploit emotions to accuse governments of shortcomings, either in preparation or in response. The goal can be to undermine trust in specific policies, like U.S. support for Ukraine, or more generally to sow internal discord. By suggesting the United States was testing or using secret weapons against its own citizens, China’s effort also seemed intended to depict the country as a reckless, militaristic power.“We’ve always been able to come together in the wake of humanitarian disasters and provide relief in the wake of earthquakes or hurricanes or fires,” said Mr. Smith, who is presenting some of Microsoft’s findings to Congress on Tuesday. “And to see this kind of pursuit instead is both, I think deeply disturbing and something that the global community should draw a red line around and put off-limits.” More

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    Today’s Top News: Trump Gets a Trial Date, and More

    The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.Former President Donald J. Trump faces federal and state investigations in New York, Georgia and Washington.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn Today’s Episode:An Update on Tropical Storm IdaliaJudge Sets Trial Date in March for Trump’s Federal Election Case, with Glenn ThrushA.I. Comes to the U.S. Air Force, with Eric LiptonEli Cohen More

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    Our Immigration System: ‘A Waste of Talent’

    More from our inbox:Cruelty at the BorderLimiting the President’s Pardon PowersAre A.I. Weapons Next?U.S. Food Policy Causes Poor Food ChoicesMateo Miño, left, in the church in Queens where he experienced a severe anxiety attack two days after arriving in New York.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesTo the Editor:“As Politicians Cry Crisis, Migrants Get a Toehold” (news article, July 15) points up the irrationality of the U.S. immigration system. As this article shows, migrants are eager to work, and they are filling significant gaps in fields such as construction and food delivery, but there are still great unmet needs for home health aides and nursing assistants.The main reason for this disjunction lies in federal immigration law, which offers no dedicated visa slots for these occupations (as it does for professionals and even for seasonal agricultural and resort workers) because they are considered “unskilled.”Instead, the law stipulates, applicants must demonstrate that they are “performing work for which qualified workers are not available in the United States” — clearly a daunting task for individual migrants.As a result, many do end up working in fields like home health care but without documentation and are thus vulnerable to exploitation if not deportation. With appropriate reforms, our system would be capable of meeting both the country’s needs for essential workers and migrants’ needs for safe havens.Sonya MichelSilver Spring, Md.The writer is professor emerita of history and women’s and gender studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.To the Editor:We have refugee doctors and nurses who are driving taxi cabs. What a waste of talent that is needed in so many areas of our country.Why isn’t there a program to use their knowledge and skills by working with medical associations to qualify them, especially if they agree to work in parts of the country that have a shortage of doctors and nurses? It would be a win-win situation.There are probably other professions where similar ideas would work.David AlbendaNew YorkCruelty at the BorderTexas Department of Public Safety troopers look over the Rio Grande, as migrants walk by.Suzanne Cordeiro/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Officers Voice Concerns Over Aggressive Tactics at the Border in Texas” (news article, July 20):In the past year, I have done immigration-related legal work in New York City with recently arrived asylum seekers from all over the world: Venezuela, China, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and Ghana. Most entered the U.S. on foot through the southern border. Some spent weeks traversing the perilous Darién Gap — an unforgiving jungle — and all are fleeing from horribly violent and scary situations.Texas’ barbed wire is not going to stop them.I am struck by the message of the mayor of Eagle Pass, Rolando Salinas Jr., who, supportive of legal migration and orderly law enforcement, said, “What I am against is the use of tactics that hurt people.” I desperately hope we can all agree about this.There should be no place for immigration enforcement tactics that deliberately and seriously injure people.I was disturbed to read that Texas is hiding razor wire in dark water and deploying floating razor wire-wrapped “barrel traps.” These products of Gov. Greg Abbott’s xenophobia are cruel to a staggering degree.Noa Gutow-EllisNew YorkThe writer is a law school intern at the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.Limiting the President’s Pardon Powers Tom Brenner for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “U.S. Alleges Push at Trump’s Club to Erase Footage” (front page, July 28) and “Sudden Obstacle Delays Plea Deal for Biden’s Son” (front page, July 27):With Donald Trump campaigning to return to the White House while under felony indictment, and with Hunter Biden’s legal saga unresolved, there should be bipartisan incentive in Congress for proposing a constitutional amendment limiting the president’s pardon power.A proposed amendment should provide that the president’s “reprieves and pardons” power under Article II, Section 2, shall not apply to offenses, whether committed in office or out, by the president himself or herself; the vice president and cabinet-level officers; any person whose unlawful conduct was solicited by or intended to benefit any of these officials; or a close family member of any of these individuals.Stephen A. SilverSan FranciscoThe writer is a lawyer.To the Editor:Beyond asking “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Donald Trump may now ask, “Where’s my Rose Mary Woods?”David SchubertCranford, N.J.Are A.I. Weapons Next? Andreas Emil LundTo the Editor:Re “Our Oppenheimer Moment: The Creation of A.I. Weapons,” by Alexander C. Karp (Opinion guest essay, July 30):Mr. Karp argues that to protect our way of life, we must integrate artificial intelligence into weapons systems, citing our atomic might as precedent. However, nuclear weapons are sophisticated and difficult to produce. A.I. capabilities are software, leaving them vulnerable to theft, cyberhacking and data poisoning by adversaries.The risk of proliferation beyond leading militaries was appreciated by the United States and the Soviet Union when banning bioweapons, and the same applies to A.I. It also carries an unacceptable risk of conflict escalation, illustrated in our recent film “Artificial Escalation.”J. Robert Oppenheimer’s legacy offers a different lesson when it comes to advanced general-purpose A.I. systems. The nuclear arms race has haunted our world with annihilation for 78 years. It was luck that spared us. That race ebbed only as leaders came to understand that such a war would destroy humanity.The same is true now. To survive, we must recognize that the reckless pursuit and weaponization of inscrutable, probably uncontrollable advanced A.I. is not a winnable one. It is a suicide race.Anthony AguirreSanta Cruz, Calif.The writer is the executive director and a co-founder of the Future of Life Institute.U.S. Food Policy Causes Poor Food Choices Steven May/AlamyTo the Editor:Re “Vegans Make Smaller Mark on the Planet Than Others” (news article, July 22):While I agree that people could help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by eating plants only, I find it crucial to note that food policy is the main reason for poor food choices.Food choices follow food policy, and U.S. food policy is focused on meat, dairy, fish and eggs. Our massive network of agriculture universities run “animal science” programs, providing billions of dollars’ worth of training, public relations, research, experimentation and sales for animal products.Our government provides subsidies to the meat, dairy, fish and egg industries far beyond what fruits, vegetables and other plant foods receive. Federal and state agriculture officials are typically connected to the meat or dairy industry. The public pays the cost of animal factories’ contamination of water and soil, and of widespread illness linked to eating animals since humans are natural herbivores.No wonder the meat, dairy, fish and egg industries have so much money for advertising, marketing and public relations, keeping humans deceived about their biological nature and what is good for them to eat.David CantorGlenside, Pa.The writer is founder and director of Responsible Policies for Animals. More