A report from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee claimed that Twitter’s censorship of Hunter Biden’s laptop articles in 2020 could soon be possible on an industrial scale. This is thanks to AI tools built with funding from his father’s administration.
The report reveals how the Biden administration is spending millions on artificial intelligence research aimed at creating anti-misinformation tools that could be passed on to social media giants.
And researchers funded by this program (known as “Track F”) found that Americans cannot distinguish fact from fiction online, and that conservatives and veterans are even more affected than the general population. He also revealed how they exchanged emails to say he was easy to accept.
The report was released by the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
The paper describes how funding from the National Science Foundation is being awarded to elite institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Michigan for a program called “Reliability and Reliability in Communication Systems.” sheds new light on.
‘Track F’ was launched to identify ‘disinformation’ and create ‘educational and training materials’ for people who are ‘vulnerable to disinformation techniques’.
It is part of a larger initiative called the Convergence Accelerator Program, which aims to find high-level research to solve problems with “significant national impact” and will be secretly launched in 2021. It was started in .
In theory, such tools could be used to remove child pornography and deepfake photos, such as nude images of Taylor Swift.
But the Republican report detailed how researchers working on the technology were aiming to censor the general public, and Michael Posmantier, manager of the $13 million program, said: It explains that it is “focused on combating misinformation and disinformation.”
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one researcher told NSF officials that “a broad swath of the public is unable to effectively distinguish fact from fiction online.”
Researchers specifically singled out “veterans, older adults, military families,” and people in “rural and indigenous communities” as particularly vulnerable to believing misinformation.
At the University of Michigan, a researcher who received millions of dollars suggested that one possible outcome of his research would be to outsource content “moderation” decisions from social media platforms to government officials. did.
Researchers at the University of Michigan say, “By externalizing the difficult responsibility of censorship, our misinformation services are assisting platform policymakers in shifting responsibility for difficult decisions…outward.” ” he said in his pitch to NSF.
Another funded researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said the team was “particularly focused on skepticism about the integrity of U.S. elections and hesitancy related to COVID-19 vaccines.” Ta.
Researchers say certain groups are targeted by misinformation, such as those who read the Bible or the Constitution.
“Interviewees distrusted both journalists and academics, so they used this practice to fact-check how media outlets reported the news.” did not provide any information, the researchers said in a message.
Researchers at the University of Washington, who received funding to create similar tools under a separate program, the Safe and Trustworthy Cyberspace Program, said countering disinformation is “inherently political”. , ultimately sent a letter to NSF officials calling it “censorship.”
It’s unclear whether any of the tools will be finalized or adopted by social media companies.
Lawmakers like Jordan are using these tools to limit what people can see and say online, amid a massive escalation of the conduct that led to the New York Post’s revelations about Hunter Biden’s laptop. They fear the tool will be perfected and implemented by platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and Facebook. It was suppressed by Twitter and Facebook before the 2020 presidential election.
The report is part of a larger investigation into the scope of the federal government’s efforts to suppress speech on social media platforms.
The committee previously reported that Facebook Deleted post Biden administration orders on the origins of the new coronavirus.
The move comes as Silicon Valley heavyweights including venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and X owner Elon Musk warn that artificial intelligence could make government officials even more likely to suppress speech. Concerns have been raised about the proliferation of censorship tools.
“Al is very likely to become the entire control layer of the world,” said Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz. I wrote it in an essay Last June.
“You should know how a small and isolated group of partisan social engineers are now trying to figure that out, under the cover of long-standing claims that they’re protecting you.”
