Behind the obvious use of AI in elections, for better or for worse, are “unseen” jobs it fills, says a University of Maryland researcher. (Photo illustration by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Americans are concerned about the effect of artificial intelligence on elections, as polls show, but the public likely doesn’t understand the full extent of its impact on what they experience every day, says an academic who studies the technology.
There are clear examples of AI-generated disinformation, such as fake audio of President Joe Biden, a fake video about voting irregularities, or memes intended to stir emotions or spread propaganda. AI is also regularly used to generate legitimate campaign messages, such as phone calls and text messages.
But behind these public examples lie the “invisible” jobs AI performs in elections, says Cody Buntain, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information, who is most prominent in determining the nature of your social media feeds.
“The systems that determine what piece of content is presented to you, that’s AI at work,” Buntain said. “From TikTok’s For You page, the X’s feed or profile page to Facebook’s feed. That’s all AI-driven.”
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Buntain is currently teaching a course on how AI is reshaping politics, and said one of the biggest places AI has made an impact is in things we generally don’t see, like your “information diet.”
A Pew Research Center survey of nearly 10,000 Americans from across the political spectrum, released in September, found that feelings of unease about the role of artificial intelligence in the presidential election were shared almost equally by both Democrats and Republicans . The survey shows that 41% of Republicans and 39% of Democrats believe AI is used “usually for bad” during the campaign. Similarly, 56% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats feel “very concerned” about AI’s impact on elections.
A separate Pew survey, also published in September, found that many Americans cite social media as their main source of news.
While general sentiments about AI’s involvement in elections are negative, most Americans likely don’t understand the full scope of how the technologies are being used by campaigns and outside forces, Buntain said. They probably don’t understand the way they are developing your social media to feed your existing views and biases.
The algorithms are built to promote angry and emotional content in feeds, potentially contributing to information silos and echo chambers.
Echo chambers aren’t inherently bad — they can bring a sense of safety and community, Buntain said. And while there is algorithmic ranking on social media, people tend to self-sort the feeds they identify with. Lately, more and more conservatives are flocking to X after Elon Musk bought the platform, and more liberals are spending their time on the likes of TikTok.
“In general, echo chambers in your offline world are much more echo chambers than echo chambers online,” he said.
But campaign advertising is another system that has been using “unseen” AI for more than a decade, Buntain says. While it feels like AI has only been prominent for a few years – especially since the release of ChatGPT in 2022 – this kind of information search, categorization, and targeted advertising has long been a tool for political campaigns.
The 2012 Obama for America campaign used data, technology and analytics to better reach American television audiences. This type of information searching, categorization, and targeted advertising is the foundation of many AI systems today, and the strategies used by the Obama campaign were further defined and deployed for the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Today’s AI algorithms can extract information about you that goes well beyond basic demographics such as age and gender, to include unique interests and preferences. That information is then used by targeted advertising campaigns across almost all of your online spaces.
Beyond these “invisible” AI jobs, Buntain focused on the potential harms that Pew survey participants were likely concerned about. People often worry about the inequality and misinformation perpetuated by AI. They also worry about whether they can trust the information they get from AI systems, such as chatbots. Many are also likely concerned about whether they will connect with a real person or a bot during the campaign cycle.
People are right to worry about these AI strategies and systems playing a role in the election, but Buntain is concerned about the ways AI could be used in the days afterward, especially if it’s a very close race.
“AI tools will allow people to very quickly create content that makes the situation worse,” he said. “Five years ago you could still create some kind of disinformation content, but it would take longer and be much more expensive.”
If you’re not a technologist, there’s a lot about AI that’s likely to baffle you and increase whatever concerns you already had about society, Buntain said.
“Is this all just a chatbot behind the scenes trying to get us to donate or make us angry?” Buntain said. “I think that concern about, you know, ‘is this an authentic actor’ is a concern that AI really amplifies, but it’s a concern that’s been around since at least 2016.”
Buntain hopes that public perception of AI will change over time. He believes that concerns about it, especially in relation to its role in elections, are driven by large-scale social issues such as the economy, the sense of security and being able to rely on information.
“As we find ourselves in an increasingly online yet isolated world, I think we’re a little ripe for being negative about how these new technologies are probably not going to help us as we thought,” he said.
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