Beyond the ballot to AI

It looks as if Artificial Intelligence, “the capability of computational systems and machines to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception and decision-making”, will be successfully used to manipulate information to derail the 2007 general elections if care is not taken.

The intensely corrosive aspects of social media platforms have now been transported, via AI, into derogatory campaign communications by political parties and presidential candidates who do not seem willing or capable of reining in their partisans, party stalwarts, and aides, many of whom have no scruples.

Negative electoral practices are gradually shifting from ballot-box grabbing, over-voting, preventing citizens from voting, inaccurate collation of votes, and violent attacks against political opponents to synthetic, or artificial, manipulation of political communications to instigate citizens, misdirect voters, and malign electoral, judicial, and security personnel.

AI has provided ample opportunities for election campaigns to degenerate into false starts, psychological thrusts and feints, as in the game of fencing with swords common in the courts of medieval European kings.

The tendency of many Nigerians to have near superstitious believe in about any content they find online, especially if such content depicts any politician whose politics, religion, or ethnic background other than their own in bad light, is legendary.

They take as God’s truth any content about anyone or anything close to their partisan political position. All you need to easily identify an Obidient or a BATist is the vociferous manner and extent to which they will go to defend or dismiss online content about their principals, and that has little or no basis in truth.

Little do these poor souls know that they have practically become victims of AI manipulation of information by local politicians and foreigners with more than passive interest in the politics, economy and commonwealth of Nigeria.

That is probably why many Nigerians could not tell whether to believe that Justice Peter Lifu of the Abuja Federal High Court indeed nullified the election of the Senator David Mark-led National Working Committee of the African Democratic Congress.

This is more significant because it has tangentially nullified the presidential candidacy of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, especially when Justice Musa Liman, of a coordinate Abuja Federal High Court, had earlier affirmed the David Mark NWC as legitimate.

With regard to the presidential candidacy of former Vice President Abubakar, the question, “To be, or not to be?” by Hamlet, protagonist of “Hamlet,” William Shakespeare’s eponymous tragedy, appears to be a sentence that has become an adjective, which the Chairman of the National Judicial Council has to interpret for Nigerians.

Nigerians have become so disoriented by the deluge of spoofs that have been presented to them as the truth (in synthetic clothing) that they are increasingly becoming unable to distinguish between the appearance and reality of the truth.

At the National Summit on AI, FIMI and Electoral Information Integrity, with the theme, “Beyond the Ballot,” recently held in Abuja by International Press Centre, Centre for Media and Society, International Institute for Democracy, and Electoral Assistance and Development Alternatives Incorporated, and bankrolled by the European Union, a few troubling concepts were interrogated.

These included Synthetic Audio Spoofing, or cloned official audio announcing false election postponements on election mornings; Deepfake Video Fabrication, or candidate concession videos; Domestic Disinformation, or deliberate online misinformation by Nigerians; and FIMI, or covert manipulation by foreign state actors targeting national sovereignty.

Others are Foreign Data Profiling, or psychological profiling and targeted dark advertising campaigns; Shadow Economy, or paid influencers, troll networks, and dark WhatsApp channels, the usually misinformed foot soldiers or net-warriors who execute most of the online battles; Tech Digitimization, or coordinated behaviour that is targeted against public trust; and Generative AI Threat, or automated voice clones and multi-lingual synthetic media.

With these devices, non-existent or conflicting court judgments, false announcements are attributed to rival political parties and the Independent National Electoral Commission, and spurious allegations are uploaded onto the digital platforms at high speed and volume to cause misgivings or even riots.

Related News

• Nigeria needs $100bn infrastructure investment annually – Engineers
• Meta deploys AI to detect underage users
• AI services offer telcos fresh revenue opportunities – GSMA

AI synthetic information manipulation is the new form of lying in the world of political campaigns. Brazen lies are packaged in such a facile manner that anyone can be easily deceived into believing them and take dangerous actions that could be detrimental to wholesome politicking.

Justifications giving for holding the summit were that “Nigeria requires more than public awareness of AI-enabled electoral manipulation. (And) it requires a trusted, coordinated and rights-respecting system through which institutions can anticipate emerging threats, verify evidence, escalate incidents, communicate authoritatively, and learn from each response.”

The Executive Director of IPC, Dr Lanre Arogundade, revealed the following startling information: that what may be described as inauthentic news travels very fast, 52 per cent of Nigeria’s 148 million internet users get their news primarily from social media, and organised social media manipulation or disinformation campaigns are now global.

Prof. Abigail Ogwezzy-Ndisika of the University of Lagos Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, who delivered the keynote address that set the tone for the summit, explained that Nigerians must “confront a stark defining truth: the battleground for democratic integrity in Africa’s largest democracy has fundamentally shifted…

“(And) it has migrated into the digital ecosystem; into the pockets of over 100 million Nigerians who consume information daily through smartphone screens, encrypted messaging groups and algorithmic social feeds.

“Today, an election can be orderly, peaceful and technically accurate at the polling station, yet be completely delegitimised in the public mind within hours, through a coordinated, algorithmically amplified synthetic disinformation campaign.”

She pointed to three threats that include Synthetic Audio Spoofing, or mimicking of the voices of individuals, say that of INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan; Deepfake Video Fabrication, that show candidates spewing inflammatory statements, or conceding defeat; and Automated Algorithmic Voter Suppression, whereby generative AI tools are deployed to send false text messages in local Nigerian languages to citizens.

To overcome these breaches, she suggested an information integrity response architecture that includes Continuous Early-Warning Detection through joint monitoring cells to capture emerging synthetic threats early enough; Independent Forensic Verification that will route flagged synthetic content through non-partisan fact-checkers; and Digital Chain of Custody and Evidence Preservation to capture and warehouse evidence for possible post-election judicial adjudications.

Also, she suggested Strategic Escalation and Routing that links stakeholders for swift mitigation on social media platforms; Rapid, Authoritative Public-Countering Messaging, to deploy multilingual counter-narratives and maintain INEC as a single source of “the truth”; and Post-Incident Review and Systemic Learning, to measure institutional response times.

But Ade Atobatele, computer scientist and founder of Bootstraps.Africa, an initiative that is focused on strategic implementation of digital infrastructure and social impact projects across Africa, seems to have a contrarian, if also iconoclastic, understanding of the essence of the summit.

He is of the opinion that, yes, synthetic messaging can influence public opinion, but he insists that with the technology available, “election results can only be manipulated within INEC.” He, therefore, suggests that INEC should always allow external inspectors to verify its portal.

Though this opinion slightly shifts the summit focus from artificial synthetic manipulations to the internal control of INEC, it should be interrogated with an open mind, in the manner of a Julius Caesar who insists that his wife must always be seen to be above suspicion.

X:@lekansote1, lekansote.com