As the 2024 election cycle heats up, the use of deepfakes has surged, raising significant concerns about their impact on political campaigns and voter trust. These AI-generated videos, which can convincingly alter the appearance, voice, or actions of political figures, have become a powerful tool for misinformation.

Mark Riedl, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing and associate director of the Georgia Tech Machine Learning Center, shared his concerns about the implications of deepfakes in politics. 

“Misinformation and the role of deepfakes are on everyone’s mind as we go into election cycles,” Riedl said. “What we are seeing is that malicious actors are starting to use generative AI increasingly in the creation of misinformation campaigns.”

In this escalating conflict, battling the deepfakes, or aggressors, has become even more challenging. 

“If we think of the arms race between the people who are using generative AI to create misinformation campaigns and the people using technology to detect them, the aggressors are well ahead,” he noted. This imbalance is troubling, as current detection techniques often fail to identify deepfakes or mistakenly flag genuine content, leading to what Riedl describes as “plausible deniability.” This plausible deniability allows individuals to dismiss real events as fabrications, further eroding public trust.

Due to the increasing sophistication of deepfakes during election cycles, robust detection systems and regulatory measures are urgently needed to safeguard democratic processes. “There isn’t a lot that regulation is really going to do to change the trajectory that we’re on. More enforcement, faster enforcement, faster shutting down of the bots and things like that will still be important,” Riedl explained. 

As deepfakes become more prevalent, the challenge for technologists and policymakers is to stay ahead of malicious actors and ensure that the public can trust the media they consume. Vigilance and innovation are critical to preserving the trust and integrity of future elections. 

Russell Clark, lead principal investigator of the Coastal Equity and Resilience Hub (CEAR) and senior research scientist at the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT), has been named the interim director of sustainability for IPaT where he can help drive the practice and culture of sustainability related to IPaT’s research projects.

“Sustainability has been an important and growing theme for Georgia Tech during the last several years as evidenced by Georgia Tech’s Sustainability Next plan,” said Clark. “I’m looking forward to this new role which aligns with the Institute’s strategic vision and goals.”

Clark has been supporting IPaT in various roles for many years and continues with a joint appointment as faculty in the School of Computer Science. He earned his doctoral degree from the College of Computing at Georgia Tech and was the co-director of the Georgia Tech Research Network Operations Center which supported a variety of research projects across campus.

He was also part of the leadership team creating the Smart Sea Level Sensors project that installed internet-enabled water level sensors across flood-vulnerable Chatham County via a working partnership between officials from the Chatham [County] Emergency Management Agency (CEMA), the City of Savannah, and Georgia Tech scientists.

In addition to IPaT’s research, Clark is working to incorporate educational opportunities for Georgia K-12 students to learn more about resiliency, sustainability, and emergency preparedness. Sharing the latest environmental, economic, and social sustainability research topics are part of his community engagement vision which he has already done by working with Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) which enhances PreK-12 and post-secondary STEM education in the state.

At the college level, Clark, through CEAR Hub, is establishing a new Vertically Integrated Projects Program team which engages undergraduate and graduate students in ambitious, long-term, large-scale, multidisciplinary projects. His resilience and sustainable knowledge expertise has been utilized to teach and co-advise students across campus in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Georgia Tech’s Lorraine campus in France.

“My long and deep involvement with the Georgia coastal community where I live today has created a passion for pursuing research focused on resilience and sustainability,” said Clark. “I hope to build on Georgia Tech’s rich history of sustainability to forge innovative relationships, elevate research and education, and improve the long-term economic and commercialization potential for the state of Georgia with our current and future research projects.”

The Coastal Equity and Resilience (CEAR) Hub partnered with the University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant to host a week-long NASA Sea Level Changemakers Summer Camp, introducing 14 rising 7th-8th graders to how coastal areas are changing due to sea level rise. CEAR Hub is a project that joins community organizations, local governments, and educational institutions together to develop the knowledge, tools, and strategies that make our communities more resilient.

Set at the UGA Marine Education Center and Aquarium on Skidaway Island, the camp offered students hands-on activities and outdoor educational experiences, where they analyzed real data collected by NASA scientists and learned about community adaptations to flooding. 

Students interacted with experts from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Georgia, and the Georgia Institute of Technology, gaining insights into satellite observations, green infrastructure, environmental sensors, and careers related to sea level rise. The camp also included a visit to the Pin Point Heritage Museum, where students engaged with leaders from the historic Gullah Geechee community of Pin Point. The camp concluded with a boat trip to Wassaw Island, where students observed the effects of sea level rise on an undeveloped barrier island and compared these observations with earlier findings from urban environments. Funding from the NASA Science Activation Program ensured that the camp was accessible to all students, eliminating financial barriers for groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields.

Russell Clark, a member of the Georgia Tech's Institute for People and Technology (IPaT), is CEAR Hub's principal investigator 

Article originally posted on CEAR HUB news. 

ATLANTA — (Oct. 21, 2024) – The Institute for People and Technology (IPaT), an interdisciplinary research institute at the Fulton County-based Georgia Institute of Technology, is partnering with The BLK+Cross to build local awareness around, and response capacity to election-related mis- and disinformation across social media and the web. Through the recently launched WatchtheVoteAtl.org, Georgia Tech and The BLK+Cross will track problematic online content and train students and the local community to rapidly identify and counter such content including misinformation during the November 2024 general election cycle. 

“I have spent the last two decades examining the role, the promises, and the peril of information technology in political development and democratic deepening,” said Georgia Tech’s Michael Best, executive director of IPaT. “This project’s hyper-focus on Fulton County allows us to have a real-world impact on our own home turf while also creating new globally generalizable methods to identify and respond to online electoral misinformation.”

“The BLK+Cross is thrilled to be working with Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology again on such an important cause — disrupting misinformation and defending our democracy. With the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw first-hand, the threat that mis- and disinformation posed to public health. Now that voting has been designated a social determinant of health, we are excited to be working with IPaT on yet another project that  addresses social vulnerability in social media, the new town square. As disinformation continues to run rampant, we are battling bots at this point. It is of critical importance to protect the power local communities have over their own digital narrative, as well as protect our collective right to vote,” said Gail Brooks, principal of The BLK+Cross.

The BLK+Cross will work alongside Amanda Meng, research scientist with the School of Computer Science, and Michael Best, who is also a professor with the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, to recruit and train volunteers to be part of a social media monitoring team, research and identify key areas of misinformation, and participate as social media monitors during a high-intensity tracking period around the election day.

This effort coincides with the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer, when students led the campaign to register Black voters. The WatchtheVoteATL.org platform empowers today’s students to stay informed about key election issues, political platforms, and policies, by helping them  determine truth from rhetoric. The initiative enables participants to share critical news and perspectives with their peers, families, and communities, ultimately encouraging informed non-partisan voter registration.

About Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology
The Institute for People and Technology's (IPaT) goal is to maximize Georgia Tech’s societal impact through people-centered innovation. They support and connect faculty and students across the entire Georgia Tech campus by blurring the lines between academic disciplines and partnering to translate research results into real-world use. Georgia Tech is at the forefront of science and technology research, and home to state-of-the-art facilities and world-renowned experts who are working every day to find answers to tough problems. IPaT brings together researchers, industry, and other partners to identify technology solutions that will shape our global future. IPaT was created in 2011 to embrace these opportunities and needs, to create a networked research ecosystem of Georgia Tech faculty and industry partners, and to amplify their combined thought leadership and on-the-ground results to create a positive economic and societal impact in critical areas that define much of everyday life.

About The BLK+Cross
The BLK+Cross brings over 20 years experience leveraging ethnographic and digital technologies to better understand and engage BIPOC, youth, and socially vulnerable populations through culture.  

Contact information:
Martine Charles, martine@marcglobalcommunications.com
Mitch Messinger, mitchell@marcglobalcommunications.com
Walter Rich, walter.rich@research.gatech.edu

Gillian Hayes, who received her doctorate in computer science from Georgia Tech in 2007, was honored with the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) Distinguished Alumni Award. The IPaT award, a successor to the GVU Alumni Award, recognizes impactful research through people-centered technologies that help to shape the global future.

Her research interests are in human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, assistive and educational technologies, and health informatics. She designs, develops, deploys, and evaluates technologies to empower people to use collected data to address real human needs in sensitive and ethically responsible ways.

Hayes delivered IPaT’s distinguished alumni lecture on October 17, 2024 in the ballroom of the Technology Square Research Building. Her lecture, “Community-Engaged Research in Autism and ADHD Technologies,” explored the trajectory of her innovative work, sustained community research partnerships, and emphasized key milestones in the development of autism and ADHD technologies by her lab. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a developmental disorder that can affect a person's ability to function in daily life.

Hayes is the vice provost for academic personnel and the Robert A. and Barbara L. Kleist Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She holds joint appointments in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science, School of Education, and School of Medicine at UC Irvine.