NEW YORK (WABC) — New York Attorney General Letitia James is calling on nearly a dozen major technology companies to take meaningful steps to protect voters from election-related misinformation, according to a letter obtained exclusively by ABC News.

“While misinformation has been a problem in past elections, with the advent of artificial intelligence, the barriers preventing malicious actors from creating deceptive or misleading content have been dramatically weakened,” said the letter, sent to 10 social media and AI companies, including Meta, Google and OpenAI.

Fraudulent and misleading content about the 2024 presidential election is circulating on the Internet. The Attorney General is particularly concerned about generative AI, which makes it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.

In an altered campaign video by Vice President Kamala Harris, her original audio has been swapped out and replaced with an AI voice clone that mimics her voice and makes her say things she never said. The creator posted the video on social media platform X along with a note that it was originally posted as a parody, but the video gained even more attention after it was reposted by Elon Musk.

In January, a robocall appeared to be the voice of President Joe Biden, urging recipients of the call to “save their vote” for the November general election rather than vote in the New Hampshire primary, according to an audio recording obtained by ABC News.

A recent report by AI Forensics, a European nonprofit that studies the impact of AI, found that Microsoft Copilot’s responses to simple election-related questions contained factual errors 30% of the time. Following those investigations, as well as a request for information from the European Commission, Microsoft and Google introduced “moderation layers” in their chatbots to make them refuse to respond to election-related questions, AI Forensics told ABC News.

In February 2023, most of the tech companies mentioned in James’ letter signed a voluntary pact to prevent AI tools from being used to disrupt democratic elections around the world. The companies did not commit to banning or removing deepfakes. Instead, they outlined methods to try to detect and label misleading AI content when it is created or distributed on their platforms.

In her letter, James requests a face-to-face meeting with these companies to discuss the steps they are taking to protect voters from misinformation. The letter requests written answers to questions about policies and practices, as well as a meeting with company representatives.

There was no mention in the letters of non-fulfillment of the demands, although each request from the Attorney General hinted at the possibility of coercive measures.

———-

* Get Eyewitness News

* Follow us on YouTube

* More local news

* Send us a news tip

* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news

Send a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News

Have a breaking news tip or story idea we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. When attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.