00:02These students are getting an election education, but instead of trying to help democracy...
00:08I am really going to try to rage bait everybody.
00:11...they're learning to subvert it.
00:12This University of New South Wales class has an unusual assignment.
00:17Use AI to influence the way people vote, to help researchers better understand election interference,
00:24so that countermeasures can be developed.
00:26To learn about how misinformation occurs in reality, how easy it is to produce,
00:31and how scary it is that it's easy to produce, but also how they can detect it.
00:36Write a tweet criticising...
00:37They're experimenting in a controlled environment.
00:40A fake vote in a made-up country, fought on a fictional social media platform,
00:45competing to convince a simulated electorate.
00:48The rules are simple. Build bots to like, post and share online.
00:52Win points by going viral or by changing voters' views by any means necessary.
00:58Tactics that would, I guess, enrage someone so that they'd have to comment.
01:02And I feel like I want to use this tactic because I see it a lot in real life when
01:08I'm scrolling on social media.
01:09While these bot-ballot battles are just fun and games, AI is already playing a role in real elections.
01:16And the Australian government says the tech is making existing threats worse.
01:20Students are also sharpening their skills in detecting bot activity.
01:24This kind of content is already being foisted upon us.
01:28It's so, so important that we're able to recognise it so that we can see it and say,
01:34actually, I know what this is. This is not authentic and I'm not going to let it affect me.
01:38While none of these problems are new, the AEC says AI is making them bigger and faster.
01:44So, to protect the elections of tomorrow, we're relying on students here today to come up with the solutions.
