Deepfake Democracy: AI’s Role in Shaping Political Realities
Virtual Briefing Series
Thursday, January 30th, 2024 | 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM ET
As artificial intelligence continues to advance, its ability to both bolster and undermine democratic processes has never been more apparent. Deepfake technology, capable of creating hyper-realistic but entirely fabricated media, is emerging as a powerful tool for misinformation, threatening the integrity of elections and public trust in democratic institutions. In a world where disinformation spreads at unprecedented speed, the stakes are high. This event will delve into the complex relationship between AI, democracy, and election security, addressing the evolving challenges posed by synthetic media and the erosion of truth in political discourse.
Join us on Thursday, January 30, 2025, from 12:30 – 1:30 PM ET for a critical discussion on how society can navigate these challenges, featuring Professor Joshua Tucker, Julius Silver Professor, Director of the Jordan Center for Advanced Study of Russia, co-Director of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University, and Yaël Eisenstat, Senior Fellow at Cybersecurity for Democracy and former head of global elections integrity at Facebook. The conversation will provide actionable insights into how we can protect democratic systems in the face of increasingly sophisticated digital manipulation. Drawing on their extensive expertise in technology, politics, and democracy, they will explore strategies to ensure a future where technology serves truth rather than subverting it.
COULDN’T ATTEND OUR EVENT? Don’t worry. You can watch it below
SPEAKERS:
Yaël Eisenstat
Yaёl Eisenstat has spent over two decades combating extremism, polarization and anti-democratic behavior both on- and offline. She is currently a Senior Fellow at Cybersecurity for Democracy, working on policy solutions for how to hold social media and other online platforms accountable for their affects on public safety and democracy. Previously, she was Vice President at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center for Technology & Society (CTS), leading ADL’s efforts to hold tech companies accountable for the proliferation of hate and extremism on their platforms. She works with industry, governments, and civil society to push for a safer internet and technology that better serves the public.
Yaёl joined ADL in October 2022 after spending more than two decades protecting our democracy, including as an intelligence officer, diplomat, and White House advisor. She joined Facebook in 2018 as the head of global elections integrity for political ads, following several years as a vocal critic of the harms that social media has inflicted on democracy and societies worldwide. After leaving Facebook six months later, she spoke openly about the company’s inability to meet its responsibility to secure elections, and she has continued to push for changes in the tech industry.
Yaël also served as the Senior Advisor for Tech and Democracy at the Institute for Security and Technology in 2021-22, was a Future of Democracy Fellow at Berggruen Institute in 2021-22, a Researcher-in-Residence at Betalab in 2020-21, and a Visiting Fellow at Cornell Tech’s Digital Life Initiative in 2019-2020, where she focused on technology’s effects on discourse and democracy and taught a multi-university course on Tech, Media and Democracy. She was also an Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs in 2017-18.
Yaël has become a key voice and public advocate for transparency and accountability in tech, particularly where real-world-consequences affect democracy and societies around the world. See her 2020 mainstage TED talk on this subject.
Yaël has been published in numerous mainstream outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, TIME, WIRED, Quartz and The Huffington Post, has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, BBC World News, CBS Sunday Morning, Bloomberg News, CBS News, PBS and C-SPAN, in policy forums, and on a number of podcasts. She earned an M.A. in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Professor Joshua Tucker
Joshua A. Tucker is Julius Silver Professor, Director of the Jordan Center for Advanced Study of Russia, co-Director of the Center for Social Media and Politics (csmapnyu.org), Professor of Politics, affiliated Professor of Data Science and affiliated Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University.
His research originally examined mass political behavior in post-communist countries, but for the pass dozen years he has focused on the intersection of the digital information environment, social media, and politics. He is the co-chair of the external academic team for the U.S. 2020 Facebook & Instagram Election Study, serves on the advisory board of the American National Election Study, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, and numerous academic journals, and was the co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Experimental Political Science. An internationally recognized scholar, he has been a keynote speaker for conferences in Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Brazil, the Netherlands, and the United States, and has given over 250 invited research presentations at top domestic and international universities and research centers. His research has been published in top general scientific journals, including Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and political science journals, including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and The Journal of Politics. His most recent books are the co-authored Communism’s Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes (Princeton University Press, 2017) and the co-edited Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field and Prospects for Reform (Cambridge University Press, 2020). He also served for over a decade as a co-author and co-editor of the political and policy blog The Monkey Cage that was hosted for part of that time at The Washington Post, and is currently a contributor to the Brookings Institute’s “Economics of AI” series.
In 2024, he was included in Clarivate’s 1% Top Cited List for the top cited researchers globally by field.
OUR VIRTUAL BRIEFINGS ARE OPEN AND FREE FOR PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
We are trying our best to keep our community informed about foreign affairs, and we would appreciate if you can support us to keep this virtual briefing series going. No amount is too small.