OpenAI, Microsoft AI tools generate misleading election images,
researchers say
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[March 06, 2024]
By Sheila Dang
(Reuters) - Image creation tools powered by artificial intelligence from
companies including OpenAI and Microsoft can be used to produce photos
that could promote election or voting-related disinformation, despite
each having policies against creating misleading content, researchers
said in a report on Wednesday.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that monitors
online hate speech, used generative AI tools to create images of U.S.
President Joe Biden laying in a hospital bed and election workers
smashing voting machines, raising worries about falsehoods ahead of the
U.S. presidential election in November.
"The potential for such AI-generated images to serve as 'photo evidence'
could exacerbate the spread of false claims, posing a significant
challenge to preserving the integrity of elections," CCDH researchers
said in the report.
CCDH tested OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus, Microsoft's Image Creator, Midjourney
and Stability AI's DreamStudio, which can each generate images from text
prompts.
The report follows an announcement last month that OpenAI, Microsoft and
Stability AI were among a group of 20 tech companies that signed an
agreement to work together to prevent deceptive AI content from
interfering with elections taking place globally this year. Midjourney
was not among the initial group of signatories.
CCDH said the AI tools generated images in 41% of the researchers' tests
and were most susceptible to prompts that asked for photos depicting
election fraud, such as voting ballots in the trash, rather than images
of Biden or former U.S. President Donald Trump.
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ChatGPT Plus and Image Creator were successful at blocking all
prompts when asked for images of candidates, said the report.
However, Midjourney performed the worst out of all the tools,
generating misleading images in 65% of the researchers' tests, it
said.
Some Midjourney images are available publicly to other users, and
CCDH said there is evidence some people are already using the tool
to create misleading political content. One successful prompt used
by a Midjourney user was "donald trump getting arrested, high
quality, paparazzi photo.”
In an email, Midjourney founder David Holz said "updates related
specifically to the upcoming U.S. election are coming soon," adding
that images created last year were not representative of the
research lab's current moderation practices.
A Stability AI spokesperson said the startup updated its policies on
Friday to prohibit "fraud or the creation or promotion of
disinformation."
An OpenAI spokesperson said the company was working to prevent abuse
of its tools, while Microsoft did not respond to request for
comment.
(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Editing by Michael Perry)
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