Important Takeaways:
- New technologies an ‘accelerant’ for hostile efforts to manipulate voters
- U.S. intelligence officials are sounding the alarm about foreign adversaries’ use of artificial intelligence to manipulate Americans and say new AI technologies are proving an “accelerant” as foreign powers plot to trick voters.
- China, Iran and Russia are all looking to leverage social media to dupe Americans ahead of November’s elections, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
- “AI is a malign influence accelerant, it is being used to more quickly and convincingly tailor synthetic content, including audio and video,” a DNI official said. “In the run-up to November’s general election, we are monitoring foreign actors seeking to create deepfakes of politicians, flood the information space with false or misleading information to sow doubt about what is real, and to amplify narratives.”
- The U.S. intelligence community says China is likely responsible for pushing dozens of videos that spread online showing AI-generated newscasters reading sections of a book outlining purported scandals about Taiwan’s former president. The book itself may also have been created by AI, according to U.S. officials.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will not invoke executive privilege to block former FBI Director James Comey’s scheduled testimony before Congress this week, the White House said on Monday.
“In order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the Senate Intelligence Committee, President Trump will not assert executive privilege regarding James Comey’s scheduled testimony,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.
Comey was leading a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into alleged Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election and possible collusion by Trump’s campaign when the president fired him last month.
Presidents can assert executive privilege to prevent government employees from sharing information.
If Trump had asserted executive privilege over Comey, it would have likely created the perception that the administration was seeking to hide information about the FBI’s Russia investigation.
It has been reported that Comey plans to talk about conversations in which Trump pressured him to drop his investigation into former national security advisor Mike Flynn, who was fired for failing to disclose conversations with Russian officials.
Comey is scheduled to testify for the first time since his firing before the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of the committee’s Russia-related investigation.
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)
