Will the Electoral Commission of Queensland ( ECQ) have the resources and legal muscle to put the brakes on fake electioneering at the upcoming state election.

More importantly, will the October poll be besmirched by malign players using new technologies to deceive and mislead voters.

There’s every chance that we will see generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) used by minor parties, fringe groups and individuals to produce fake and or misleading electoral material come 26 October this year. Anything goes, if that’s the case.

Why do I make that claim?  It’s because of the proliferation of the latest GAI tools since early 2023. Now in its third iteration inside a year, it’s readily and cheaply available to all comers – do a Google search and see what’s out there .

Moreover, the major political parties whilst ruthless, are more disciplined and realise the opprobrium that would come their way if exposed effectively cheating during a campaign.

It’s not impossible that desperate and unhinged parties or persons could even try to impersonate ECQ officials, such is the reach of the new technology. Polling day could be a complete she mozzle.

What is GAI? It’s the use of new computer technology, only developed and released over the past year to create extremely life-like images, sound recordings and video. The emphasis is the creative aspect.

Think about realistic impersonations of Elvis, the Beatles or Mozart performing entirely new material based on all their known works.

Ditto , a fourth Godfather movie featuring Marlon Brando and all the original long-deceased characters from the early 1970s.

There are plenty of Joe Biden and Donald Trump deep fakes already doing the rounds in America.

It was only late last year that the staff at the major Hollywood studios went on strike to protect their jobs from the threat of GAI. The creative world is well and truly in trepidation from the relatively cheap threat to create new content.

Rumman Chowdury, the former head of Machine Learning, Ethics, Transparency and Accountability at X ( formerly Twitter), says with 2 billion voters around the world going to the polls this year there are already signs that are deeply worrying  and the concerns are more than misinformation, or the proliferation of fake news.

Chowdury introduces the concepts of “soft fakes”and “cheap fakes” to partner “deep fakes”. She gives very recent examples of soft fakes used in the Indonesian Presidential election earlier this year where soft fakes in the guise of GIA-generated cartoons softened and repositioned the previously unelectable Prabowo Subianto – a former ruthless Army General.

The technology turned him into a cuddly grandpa in digital cartoon form. The deep fake saw the deceased, revered Indonesian leader Suharto digitally resurrected to campaign for Subianto. He won the election hands down.

Both China and Russia are said to be currently using this technology to interfere with foreign elections around the globe. Malicious intent is the name of the game.

To my mind the “cheap fakes “are more concerning in Queensland than foreign actors, as any malcontent or fruit loop can maliciously join into the electoral process simply and easily with tools they could only previously dream about.

In past council elections I’ve seen the growth of criminal defamation of candidates, disinformation, conspiracy theories and tripe that type serve up on social media, most particularly Facebook.

GAI takes that to a whole new level in 2024. They could literally play havoc with the October State poll , as sadly there are many gullible voters out there.

In a paper released in late February by the Queensland Government entitled “Disinformation and Elections in the Age of Artificial Intelligence“ it was said that concepts such as deep fakes were thought impossible in 2022, yet by 2024 the threat was real.

Examples were given of deep fakes in the Slovakian election in late 2023 and the conduct of the Voice referendum in Australia earlier this year. Other than postulating future legislative change, no real solutions were offered .

In my last incarnation as CEO of the LGAQ I created, at a cost of circa $500k, an Independent Fact Checker (IFC). The IFC, a retired Judge, was supported by half a dozen staff and a leading legal firm, that operated at arm’s length from my employer, for the period of the 2020 council elections to oversight online conduct.

Its role was to check public assertions in a timely manner, and call “crap”in a considered fashion, if need be. It was a first in Australia , and worked reasonably well, given that it had no statutory underpinning, or legal protection.

In part , it was also created because of a belief the ECQ did not have the resources or inclination to get involved in this vitally important area – despite it being in its legal remit to do so.

All that said, the LGAQ did prove an Independent Fact Checker model can work.

2024 is a different story all together with the advent of GAI. I genuinely feel for the ECQ , who do have some statutory responsibilities, but nothing like the resources needed to prevent a free for all in October.

Dame Wendy Hall , an internationally recognised expert on GAI and a member of the UKs AI Council has belled the cat in saying “ that AIs ability to damage democracy should be more of an immediate concern than any existential threat posed by the technology” .

Do we really want a state election turned into a donnybrook and marred by soft, cheap and deep fakes.

Its real and with us . Remember where you read it first.

Greg Hallam is an economist and former CEO of the Local Government Association of Queensland. He writes regularly for InQueensland.