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Election Commission to work with other organisations to combat AI, social media issues
View(s):By Ishu Bandara
The Election Commission faces challenges and limitations in monitoring social media and AI-related issues due to a lack of equipment and manpower, it said. In order to overcome these challenges, the commission plans to collaborate with other organisations.
Election Commissioner General Saman Sri Rathnayake told the Sunday Times that the commission will continue its collaboration with the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL).
In previous elections, technical support was provided through PAFFREL’s partnership with Hashtag Generation, he said.
Election Commissioner General Saman Sri Rathnayake
“We are generally not very capable of controlling and monitoring social media and AI issues because we don’t have the relevant equipment and we don’t have the manpower. Because this requires specific technical experts, as we did in the previous elections, we continue to cooperate with PAFFREL because we have a good mutual understanding and trust in each other,” he said.
“We got technical support in previous elections to connect with Hashtag Generation. In this election we decided to collaborate not only with Hashtag but also with an organisation called Factum and 9 other organisations that have the facilities and capacity to monitor social media and fact check, including the legal sector. ”
“In addition, the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) provides assistance in monitoring print media and electronic media as well, ” Mr Rathnayake told the Sunday Times.
“We are having a conversation with the local representative and with the parent companies of Google, YouTube, Tik Tok and Meta on how we can get their support and supervision to handle issues in the pre-election process and the post-election period.”
“These companies have expressed their commitment to assisting, under their specific conditions and criteria.”
Mr Rathnayake said this was the mechanism they are going to introduce to avoid AI impact on social media, especially in the upcoming election process.
Half of the world is participating in election processes in 2024, and every part of the world is using this new trend, artificial intelligence, in a massive way for their election process. This changes the traditional electoral process and the image of the political world.
The commission has the power to issue an order to the Police and other government sectors related to the election during the election period. The commission also has power to make appointments and dismissals. Mr Rathnayake assured there would be no barriers to enforcing election laws to ensure a fair and democratic electoral process.
Meanwhile, Professor Tudor Weerasinghe, Senior Lecturer (Media Studies), Faculty of Mass Media, University of Colombo, Sri Palee Campus told the Sunday Times, AI is an element that can influence man to control entire aspects of life such as economy, politics, entertainment, sports, media, education, law and health. “In short we can say. AI will have a significant impact on humans.
“When we get AI into the electoral process, it affects, manipulates, controls and distorts public opinion and public consciousness according to political elites and that includes changing the final results of elections.”
Prof Tudor Weerasinghe Pix by Akila Jayawardhana
“International intellectuals, diplomats, and politicians have been paying more attention to the work of Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.”
These main companies along with 20 other organisations, signed a general agreement to control the situation in the electoral system processed last February. “In this agreement, the organisations concerned build the regulatory system to handle and mitigate the consequences when AI is used in the electoral process. Any candidate using AI tools in the election process must disclose it, as the agreement states,” Mr Weerasinghe added.
Professor Weerasinghe said the European Union announced that AI influence will create a controversial situation for the world’s political democracy through misinformation and mal-information.
He said people can be misled by misinformation. Mal-information can directly affect the electoral process in a country like Sri Lanka. It is a distortion that can be defined as factual but gives a wrong image to the public and can spread significant harm in communities.
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