Biting heads off puppies': AI's threat to elections

Key points

• Australian Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope told a parliamentary committee that artificial intelligence is boosting misinformation, foreign interference and threats against political figures. He floated a legal requirement to label deepfakes but said the commission's enforcement powers are limited.
• Pope said it could only stop misleading content about the casting of a vote, and that a total ban on deepfakes might breach the implied freedom of political communication.
• Separately, a Productivity Commission representative said it was an open question whether Australia needed to host advanced AI models, and that copyright law would block training unless content was licensed.