Ari­zona elec­tion offi­cials trained to pre­pare for deep­fakes ahead of elec­tion

In the swing state of Ari­zona, elec­tion offi­cials are being trained on how to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-gen­er­at­ed “deep­fake” videos and real ones as they brace them­selves for poten­tial mis­in­for­ma­tion ahead of and dur­ing the 2024 gen­er­al elec­tion.
In a Decem­ber 2023 train­ing, elec­tion offi­cials were greet­ed by a video from Demo­c­ra­t­ic Ari­zona Sec­re­tary of State Adri­an Fontes wish­ing them luck in the train­ing. Deep­fakes are videos in which a real per­son, often­times celebri­ties or politi­cians, are manip­u­lat­ed using AI to say typ­i­cal­ly false infor­ma­tion.
“We are very excit­ed that all of you are here,” Fontes says in the video. “You are on the front lines, and this exer­cise is a prime oppor­tu­ni­ty for you to hone your skills by expe­ri­enc­ing new chal­lenges as a team.”
After com­plet­ing the train­ing over the course of two days, elec­tion offi­cials were told Fontes’s address was …