AI incident ·
Manipulated Media via AI Disinformation and Deepfakes in 2024 Elections Erode Trust Across More Than 50 Countries
On this page 8 sections
In brief
An AI system built by Openai, Google and 1 other and deployed by Russian Government, Political Operatives and 2 others allegedly harmed Voters, Public Trust and 4 others.
- Risk domain
- Malicious Actors & Misuse
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 1 report
What happened
AI-driven election disinformation is escalating globally, leveraging easy-to-use generative AI tools to create convincing deepfakes that mislead voters. This shift has simplified the process for individuals to generate fake content, having already eroded trust in elections by undermining public trust and manipulating voter perceptions. Evidence has, for example, been documented in incidents across the U.S., Moldova, Slovakia, Bangladesh, and Taiwan.
Laws on record for this risk area
Policy angle: Classified under Malicious Actors & Misuse (Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale) in the MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy; 5 instruments on record cover this risk area.
- India DPDP Act
- Law on Artificial Intelligence (2025)
- Law No. 132/2025 on artificial intelligence
- EU AI Act
- Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (TRAIGA)
Matched from the record's risk category and country to the instruments in effect recorded here: a law listed covers the area, which is not a finding that it applies to this incident. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (1)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- Russian Government, Political Operatives, Political Consultants, Chinese Communist Party
- Alleged developer
- Openai, Google, Deepfake Creators
- Alleged harmed party
- Voters, Public Trust, Political Figures, General Public, Civic Society, Democratic Integrity
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
- Malicious Actors & Misuse
- Risk subdomain
- 4.1 Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale
- Causal entity
- AI
- Intent
- Intentional
- Timing
- Post-deployment
- Harm level
- —
- Sectors
- —
- Countries
- —
Risk entries describing this failure mode
Entries from the MIT AI Risk Repository coded to subdomain 4.1.
- Electoral interference
"Electoral interference - Generation of false or misleading information that can interrupt or mislead voters and/or undermine trust in electoral processes."
- Political and Economic
"Political and Economic - Manipulation of political beliefs, damage to political institutions and the effective delivery of government services."
- Coercion/manipulation
"Coercion/manipulation - Use of a technology system to covertly alter user beliefs and behaviour using nudging, dark patterns and/or other opaque techniques, resulting in potential erosion of privacy, addiction, anxiety/...
- Political manipulation
"Political manipulation - Use or misuse of personal data to target individuals’ interests, personalities and vulnerabilities with tailored political messages via micro-advertising or deepfakes/synthetic media."
- Political
"In the UK, a form of initial computational propaganda has already happened during the Brexit referendum1 . In future, there are concerns that oppressive governments could use AI to shape citizens’ opinions"
- Biased influence through citizen screening and tailored propaganda
"AI-powered chatbots tailor their communication approach to influence individual users' decisions. In the UK, a form of initial computational propaganda has already happened during the Brexit referendum. In future, there...
- Surveillance and Censorship
"Content moderation has emerged as one of the key use-cases of LLMs (Weng et al., 2023), indicating the potential of LLMs for surveillance and censorship as well (Edwards, 2023). Surveillance and censorship are one of th...
- Disinformation and manipulation of public opinion
"AI, particularly general- purpose AI, can be maliciously used for disinformation (351), which for the purpose of this report refers to false information that was generated or spread with the deliberate intent to mislead...
Incidents in the same risk subdomain
- Suspected AI-Generated Deepfake Video Reportedly Targeted Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Instagram
- Purportedly AI-Manipulated Satellite Image Reportedly Claimed Iranian Strike Destroyed U.S. Radar in Qatar
- Purported AI-Generated War Footage Reportedly Circulated Widely Online During the Opening Phase of the War in Iran
- Network of Allegedly Fake Facebook Profiles with Purportedly AI-Generated Images Amplified Posts by Bulgaria's 'There Is Such a People' (ITN) Party
- Purportedly AI-Generated Image Reportedly Circulated Ahead of Thai Election Depicting PM Anutin Charnvirakul Dining with Benjamin Mauerberger
- Purportedly AI-Altered Images Reportedly Distort Evidence After Minneapolis Shooting of ICU Nurse Alex Pretti
Source record: incident #674 on the AI Incident Database · all 1 report