Mateusz Łabuz authored the policy commentary titled “”From Ship of Theseus to Modern Elections – Deepfakes and Their Influence on Political Advertising”. The commentary was published by the Future Shift Labs.

Mateusz asks very relevant questions about the limits of manipulation in the techno-political sphere. In an era where artificial intelligence and computer-generated, visually enhanced and filtered content reshapes every aspect of life, politics is no exception. The problem is bigger than photo-filters concealing wrinkles or optimizing body-shapes on our social media posts in accordance to unrealistic beauty ideals. The new technological frontier are deepfakes, and not in the way we have associated with them so far. AI-generated or AI-manipulated visual and audio content that appears to be authentic but in fact is misleading or deceiving has been used as a tool of disinformation, subversion, and cognitive warfare. However, it is increasingly used in other ways, for example to enable politicians to create and optimize their digital avatars and boost their attractiveness. And at the same time replace some specific features, the individual planks of the metaphoric ship that is us. As the digital landscape becomes increasingly indistinguishable from reality, where do we draw the line between persuasion and deception? Is it possible to set the limits of manipulation at all?

The commentary can be read here.

Photo credits: Future Shift Labs