McCool, C., McKelvey, F., Marinov, R., & Bisson, R. (2025, April 8). AI is making elections weird: Lessons from a simulated war-game exercise. The Conversation.

Abstract

This article examines how generative AI might impact elections, prompted by a suspicious video of Canadian politician Pierre Poilievre. Researchers at Concordia University developed a “Fraudulent Futures” simulation where teams competed using freely available AI tools to either spread or detect disinformation within a simulated social media environment. Their findings revealed three key insights: generative AI tools are easily accessible for creating electoral disruption despite supposed safeguards; AI detection tools are insufficient and may undermine traditional verification methods; and while high-quality deepfakes remain difficult to produce, low-quality “AI slop” can be mass-generated to sow confusion. The study offers insights into developing more effective approaches to media literacy in an increasingly AI-influenced information landscape.