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AI is reshaping high-stakes elections around the world

Oct 22, 2026, 6:28pm EDT
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An AI generated avatar of former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro is displayed at a Liberal Partido rally in São Paulo, Brazil.
An AI generated video of Jair Bolsonaro plays at rally. Bia Borges/Reuters

Partisan actors are gaming AI platforms to regurgitate misleading information ahead of critical elections in Brazil, Israel, and the US.

Cybersecurity firms identified thousands of AI-generated websites purporting to be local US news sites, but “the sites are not written for voters,” one firm noted: “They are written for the AI systems voters ask.”

While Brazil and Israel are attempting to police the deluge of deepfakes that are impacting high-stakes races, experts warn that voters are more vulnerable to chatbots that can “sway opinions [and] suppress turnout,” The Times of Israel reported.

“We should stop thinking of AI safety as a finish line,” an expert told Transformer. “The objective should be resilience.”

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