美国情报部门宣布，在即将到来的十一月美国总统选举前，中国、伊朗与俄罗斯等国家利用人工智能制造误导性内容意图欺骗美国人。在国家安全局组织的一次由国家情报总监办公室主办的关于外国干预选情努力情况的电话会议上，相关官员表示，尽管人工智能使创造假信息变得更加容易，但它并未从根本上改变这些行动者的操作模式。
该国的情报部门官员指出：“根据我们的情报机构观点，AI被视为负面影响力加速器，而不是革命性影响力的工具。换句话说，信息运作是威胁所在，而AI则是辅助手段。”
会议上，一名情报部门官员提到，迄今为止，“我们没有看到它在这样的运营中实现革命性的转变。” 该官员认为，在评估假信息影响时发现，美国对手难以避免被西方的AI公司检测到，自身未开发出特别先进的AI模型，并且在有效传播由AI生成的内容方面存在困难。
ODNI（国家情报总监办公室）并未提供具体的误导性内容实例，仅指出，一般而言，随着11月的到来，干预选情的努力数量正在增加。此前，在NSA发现黑客和宣传者利用AI提高其说服力后不久，情报部门组织了这次会议，并提及今年年初NSA官员透露，全球的黑客和宣传者越来越多地使用类似ChatGPT的生成型人工智能聊天机器人来与潜在受害者沟通。
在8月，ChatGPT的开发公司OpenAI宣布禁止关联于伊朗企图操作的账号。伊朗试图制造针对美国选举的影响内容的一部分。
俄罗斯对美选举的干扰行动规模空前，并产生最多的人工智能生成内容，这包括文本、图片、音频和视频等，官员表示。宣传者有时仍依靠人类演员参与某些视频制作，例如被微软和克莱姆森大学研究团队识别的一段虚构事件袭击特朗普支持者的视频。
会议中再次重申了以下信息：伊朗倾向于损害唐纳德·特朗普的竞选活动；而中国主要开展打击民主及干扰选举的全面行动，并非推动某位候选人胜出。相反，俄罗斯则希望通过特朗普击败任何民主党候选人，考虑到他在乌克兰政策立场的不同。
美国官方此前已经正式指控俄罗斯策划了旨在影响美国选民的两大影响力运动：暗中资助一家媒体公司向右翼影响者支付发布视频费用；维持假新闻网站，这些网站似乎很少有人阅读。美国还称伊朗策划了一项黑客行动，盗取共和党总统候选人唐纳德·特朗普竞选团队的文件，并将其发送给媒体机构，这些机构一般都未公布这些信息。
俄罗斯和伊朗均否认犯有罪行。该官员指出，与伊朗相比，俄罗斯对美国政治有着更深入的理解。在一些自称为美国人身份的伊朗网络宣传者推动移民作为分裂性问题上表现出不同，而俄罗斯则明白针对摇摆州选民更具成效。
因此，在这轮会议上，情报官员总结了各国行动的不同侧重点：伊朗通常旨在打击特朗普竞选活动；中国专注于对美国民主制度的全面攻击，并不推举特定候选人；而俄罗斯的目标则是希望特朗普能战胜任何民主党候选人。
新闻来源：www.nbcnews.com
原文地址：Russia, Iran and China are using AI in election interference efforts, U.S. intelligence officials say
新闻日期：2024-09-24
原文摘要：
Propagandists in China, Iran and Russia are using artificial intelligence to create content designed to deceive Americans ahead of the November presidential election, federal intelligence officials said Monday. In a conference call about foreign election interference efforts organized by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, officials said the U.S. intelligence community has concluded that AI has made it easier to create disinformation, but has not fundamentally changed the way those actors operate. “The IC considers AI a malign influence accelerant, not yet a revolutionary influence tool. In other words, information operations are the threat, and AI is an enabler,” said one ODNI official, referring to the U.S. intelligence community. The official requested not to be named as a condition for participating in the call. “Thus far, the IC has not seen it revolutionize such operations,” he said. In its assessment of the impact of disinformation, the official noted that U.S. adversaries struggle to avoid detection by Western AI companies, have not developed particularly advanced AI models of their own, and struggle to effectively disseminate AI-generated content. ODNI declined to provide specific examples of the disinformation that it was referring to but said that, in general, the number of election interference efforts was increasing ahead of November. The ODNI call comes after the National Security Agency said earlier this year it had detected hackers and propagandists increasingly using AI to help them seem like convincing English speakers. In January, an NSA official said hackers and propagandists around the world were increasingly using generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT when trying to communicate with potential victims. In August, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, said it had banned accounts linked to an attempted Iranian operation that in part aimed to create content aimed at influencing the U.S. election. Russia has by far the biggest disinformation operation aimed at the U.S. election and correspondingly has created the most AI-generated content, the official said, including text, images, audio and video, the official said. Its propagandists also still rely on human actors for some videos, as in one identified by Microsoft and Clemson University researchers in which actors stage a video of a fake attack on a Trump supporter. As in previous calls, officials reiterated that Iran preferred to hurt Trump’s campaign, while China runs down ballot and general anti-democracy influence operations but is not pushing one candidate over another. Russia, on the other hand, wants Trump to beat any Democratic candidate given his policy positions on Ukraine. Federal officials have formally accused Russia of masterminding two sprawling influence campaigns aimed at influencing American voters: covertly funding a media company that paid right-wing influencers to publish videos, and maintaining fake news sites that appear to have little viewership. The U.S. has also said Iran is behind an operation in which hackers stole files from Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign and sent them to media outlets, which generally have refrained from publishing them. Russia and Iran have denied wrongdoing. Russia has a much more sophisticated understanding of American politics than Iran, the intelligence official said Monday. Iranian online propagandists that pretend to be American have pushed immigration as a divisive issue. Russia, on the other hand, understands it’s more effective to target voters in swing states.
