WASHINGTON (AP) — Releasing an audio recording of a special counsel’s interview with President Joe Biden could lead to deepfakes and disinformation that mislead Americans, the Justice Department said, conceding that the U.S. government’s abuse of artificial intelligence cannot stop in the run-up to this year’s elections.
A senior Justice Department official raised the concerns Friday in a lawsuit seeking to keep the recording secret. The Biden administration is trying to convince a judge to prevent the release of the recording of the president’s interview, which focused on his handling of classified documents.
The admission highlights the impact AI-manipulated disinformation could have on voting and the limits of the federal government’s ability to combat it.
A conservative group suing to force the recording’s release called the argument a “red herring.”
Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation accused the Justice Department of shielding Biden from potential embarrassment. A transcript of the interview showed that the president had difficulty remembering certain dates and confusing details, but at other times showed a deep recall of information.
“They don’t want to release this audio at all,” said Howell, executive director of the group’s surveillance project. “They are taking the kitchen sink approach and are absolutely panicking that they don’t have any good legal argument to stand on.”
The Justice Department declined to comment on the filing Monday.
Biden used executive privilege last month to prevent the recording of his two-day interview from being released in October special counsel Robert Hur. The Justice Department has argued that witnesses are less likely to cooperate if they know their interviews could become public. It has also said that Republican efforts to force the release of the audio could make it more difficult to protect sensitive law enforcement files.
Sen. Mark Warner, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The Associated Press that he worried the audio could be manipulated by bad actors using AI. Nevertheless, according to the senator, it should be made public.
“You have to release the audio,” Warner said, although it would require some “watermarked components so that journalists and others” if it were changed “could cry foul.”
In an extensive report, Hur concluded that no criminal charges were warranted in his handling of classified documents. His report described the 81-year-old Democrat’s memory as “fuzzy,” “poor” and with “significant impairment.” It noted that Biden could not remember milestones such as when his son Beau died or when he was vice president.
Biden’s aides have long been defensive about the president’s age, a trait that has led to relentless attacks from Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and other Republicans. Trump is 77.
The Justice Department’s concerns about deepfakes were raised in lawsuits filed in response to legal action brought under the Freedom of Information Act by a coalition of media outlets and other groups, including the Heritage Foundation and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
An attorney for the media coalition, which includes The Associated Press, said Monday that the public has the right to hear the recording and weigh whether the special counsel “accurately described” Biden’s interview.
“The government is turning the Freedom of Information Act on its head by telling the Court that the public cannot be trusted with that information,” attorney Chuck Tobin wrote in an email.
Bradley Weinsheimer, deputy attorney general for the Justice Department, acknowledged that “malicious actors” could easily use unrelated audio recordings of Hur and Biden to create a fake version of the interview.
However, he argued that releasing the actual audio would make it harder for the public to distinguish deepfakes from the real ones.
“If the audio recording is released, the public would know that the audio recording is available and malicious actors could create an audio deepfake in which a fake voice of President Biden could be programmed to say anything the deepfake creator wishes ,” wrote Weinsheimer. .
Experts on identifying AI-manipulated content said the Justice Department had legitimate concerns in trying to limit the dangers of AI, but the arguments could have far-reaching consequences.
“If we were to follow this strategy, it would be difficult to release any type of content, even if it is original,” said Alon Yamin, co-founder of Copyleaks, an AI content detection service. focuses mainly on text and code.
Nikhel Sus, deputy chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said he has never seen the government raise concerns about AI in lawsuits over access to government data. He said he suspects such arguments are becoming more common.
“Because we know how the Justice Department works, this assignment must be reviewed by different levels of lawyers,” Sus said. “The fact that they put this in a short summary means that the ministry is behind it as a legal argument, so we can anticipate seeing the same argument in future cases.”
