In 2014, The Intercept magazine was founded in the United States, whose initial objective was to publish the documents leaked by former CIA employee Edward Snowden. Precisely in this publication you can see a wish list presented by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), a stealthy counterterrorism group within the US Department of Defense (DoD), which reveals the interest of the agency in using generative AI to create fake internet users online.
That is despite the US government warnings that deepfakes and other AI-generated content will deepen the misinformation crisis and lead to a murkier information ecosystem for everyone.
In the document, JSOC explains that it is looking for “technologies that can generate compelling online personas for use on social media platforms, social networking sites, and other online content” to its use by Special Operations Forces. This “solution,” adds JSOC, “should include facial and background images, facial and background video, and audio layers.”
According to the wish list, JSOC wants Space Force agents to “use this capability to gather information from public online forums.” In other words, JSOC wants to provide its special operations teams the technology to create sophisticated AI deepfakes and personalized, capable of convincing social media users that they are authentic and thus obtain information.
For one thing, it’s not that intelligence personnel aren’t already lurking on online message boards and social media channels, or that the Pentagon is no stranger to online outside influence campaigns either. But perform continuous control through AI in social networksyes, it is something new and points out a direction little explored until now by intelligence agencies. At least on a public level.
Already last year, The Intercept noted that the Pentagon was interested in deepfakes as a means to enhance and expand influence efforts run by the Department of Defense’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and wrote in a tender for 2023 that I was looking for “more comprehensive and disruptive and broader-reaching” technologies than the tools in force at that time.
And with presidential election day quickly approaching, it’s worth noting that Project 2025, a plan for a new Donald Trump presidency, is also seeks to expand surveillance and espionage efforts.
But as the Pentagon races to use AI to power its digital activities, experts warn that the US defense sector’s adoption of the technology will give green light to similar deceptive practices for nations around the world.
“This will only embolden other militaries or adversaries to do the same – noted Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the Now Institute in an interview – which will lead to a society in which it will be increasingly difficult to distinguish truth from fiction and will confuse the geopolitical sphere