Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said over the weekend that he is most concerned about foreign actors interfering in U.S. elections by introducing deep fakes that go viral on social media and end up tilting who people vote for before the videos can be debunked.
Rubio, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made the remarks during a Sunday CBS News interview on “Face The Nation” with Margaret Brennan.
He said that the scenario that he worries about is in the 48 hours before an election where a foreign action could release “fake audio or fake video generated using A.I.” that could influence the results of the election.
“In very close races, it could tip the scales,” he said. “I do think all the way around, here’s the bottom line. If you see something out there, a video that just seems way too scandalous, I would pause for a second and make sure that it can be verified. That’s my advice to everybody is, don’t just believe something you see for the first time. It may have been something that happened five years ago, and they’re making it look like it happened yesterday.”
“It may be something that – that has been made up using an A.I. mechanism to do so,” he continued. “And so that would be my advice to people as well. Again, I’m not saying 48 hours before the election is irrelevant in America. I am saying it’s probably less impactful than it is in some of these other countries, who don’t have mail voting, early voting, where so many of the votes are already in by then.”
He then warned that the foreign operations targeting American elections could have their greatest impact at the congressional-level.
“I think some of these lower ballot races are the ones that are particularly more susceptible, because, if you’re running for Congress or Senate somewhere, let’s say a congressional seat, and someone dumps something like this on you, it’s much harder to get the truth out there in time for it to be cleared up,” he said. “There just isn’t going to be as much interest, and there isn’t going to be as much people covering it.”
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