AI Meets Info Weapons

Profs. Brett Goldstein and Brett Benson, political scientists who are also members of Vanderbilt’s Wicked Problems Lab (yes, this is a real thing!), recently wrote in the New York Times about a Chinese company called GoLaxy that could be the next Cambridge Analytica… only an order of magnitude more powerful.

That’s because this CCP-linked consultancy is deploying sophisticated generative AI techniques (including humanlike chatbots and deepfakes) in influence campaigns against China’s enemies, including in Hong Kong in 2020, and again in Taiwan prior to the 2024 elections. And the researchers have discovered that GoLaxy is starting to compile data on notable American political figures and voters, too.

Is the United States ready to deal with a new, potentially super-intelligent frontier in information warfare? Is it still capable of defending itself through regulation, legislation, and clandestine cyber operations? And can it hope to strike back against its enemies in kind, given that those autocracies already strictly control their own internets and social media? We discuss!