Information Warfare in the Age of AI and Anonymity
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Why is false information considered a fundamental dimension of geopolitics?
I regard this as a massive new dimension of geopolitical warfare, dividing the populations. And it works. There's always been propaganda. And propaganda was used both to persuade the population and in a different way to confuse commanders at the other side. So false information is a fundamental dimension of geopolitics. So that's not new. For me, what's radically new is the technology that's available. And what that allows you to do is something that couldn't be done before. Before, the United States was very good at this sort of information warfare, we'll call it that. We had the Voice of America. We had Radio Free Europe. Radio Free Europe seemed to many Hungarians in 1956 to be saying that if you rise up against the Russians, we will come to your aid.
It didn't actually say this, but the Hungarians interpreted it, rose up based on that. But they knew who was sending that information. And they knew it was Radio Free Europe because they understood the voice that was speaking to them. There was some one person who spoke Hungarian to the Hungarian public. And it was very difficult to fake it. What the internet gives us is anonymity.
How does internet anonymity enable state actors to impersonate any nationality?
We do not know who is speaking. And I have written about this as a very dangerous thing. The founders of the country guaranteed free speech. That meant that the state could not control speech. It was assumed, however, that social forces would limit speech because the people around them were not limited in what they could do to people who spoke both falsely and wickedly and so on and so forth. The internet is a place in which no responsibility can be taken. In fact, the identity can be hidden. You could appear to be something other than you are. And therefore, in principle, you can be a Chinese or a Russian or an Iranian speaking as if you were an American. Accents aren't there, the voices aren't there.
And it's not It is technically possible to create an internet that will require social responsibility that identify you. It will always be possible, always to make phony phone calls and everything, but it would not be perfect. But there'll be elements that could be done. The nature of this, as I've talked in the past, is like a garbage dump. And I know my email has become a garbage dump. I frequently look for your comments, but I can't miss them because some woman wants to meet me to talk about business at lunch this morning.
What is the ‘dead internet’ theory and how much of today’s content is AI‑generated?
And all sorts of strange things come into my email box. It's a garbage dump. Within that garbage dump, that's a space in which you can insert many things in many ways. And the idea of credibility is based on what? So if you are skillful at using the technology of the internet, doing it in such a way, you can pretend to be whoever you want to be, And these people on both sides are trained to be who they were supposed to be, practiced it and so on and so forth. The ability to shape public opinion based on the technologies available today are so much greater than what was possible with radio, shortwave radio and stuff like that. So we're in a different place. The internet and email, as well, has become a garbage dump, is a place that has to evolve into something that makes social awareness and political awareness possible.
Now, there are undoubtedly technologies that can do that. I think Doug knows something more about this than I do. But for the obvious person, I just don't know if that woman really doesn't want to meet me at 10 o'clock this morning. And I suspect she wouldn't. I suspect she's not a woman. I don't know what it is. But the ability to manipulate minds through the Internet is an extraordinary weapon.
Yeah.
In what ways are adversaries using AI to create social tensions and divide societies?
And I would say too, when you think about this from an adversarial perspective, the United States is bound by the rule of law and we have ethical boundaries and all those sorts of things that our adversaries don't pay any attention to. And so when you've got something that is communicating in the online information environment, whether it's a real person or it's a bot, And you can design these bots and algorithms to be sensitive to culture, sensitive to language, so on and so forth, so that it sounds like the real thing.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is false information considered a fundamental dimension of geopolitics?
0:00–1:35
2
How does internet anonymity enable state actors to impersonate any nationality?
1:35–3:14
3
What is the ‘dead internet’ theory and how much of today’s content is AI‑generated?
3:14–5:04
4
In what ways are adversaries using AI to create social tensions and divide societies?
5:04–7:42
5
Can artificial intelligence be used to detect other AI‑generated propaganda?
7:42–9:58
6
Why do experts predict a major social crisis in the 2020s and how does it threaten national security?
9:58–11:51
7
Will the current structure of the internet and email survive the next decade?
11:51–13:59
8
What policy changes are needed to protect free speech while limiting anonymous manipulation?
13:59–15:29