With U.S. election season well underway, China is increasing its use of artificial intelligence as part of broader efforts to interfere with American politics, according to Microsoft—meanwhile learning what divides citizens in order to leverage it to foment discord.
"CCP-affiliated actors have started to pose contentious questions on controversial U.S. domestic issues to better understand the key issues that divide U.S. voters,” Microsoft warns. The report suggests that China also uses social media to portray the US in an “unfavorable light.”
The report includes several screenshots of social media accounts asking for opinions on controversial topics, including AI-generated or manipulated images and employing tactics to garner reach and engagement on various platforms.
Source: Microsoft
"There has been an increased use of Chinese AI-generated content in recent months, attempting to influence and sow division in the US and elsewhere on a range of topics," the report said. These tactics include written content as well as image and video deepfakes.
China is also meddling in local politics. Microsoft cites posts about a train derailment in Kentucky, the Maui wildfires, and immigration issues along the southern U.S. border. The accounts, which encourage people to comment with their opinions on major news events, are “Chinese sockpuppets,” the report explains.
While acknowledging "there is little evidence these efforts have been successful in swaying opinion," Microsoft cautions that China is likely improving its AI-powered propaganda operations over time.
"China’s increasing experimentation in augmenting memes, videos, and audio will likely continue—and may prove more effective down the line,” the report concludes.
Beyond China, Microsoft also called attention to online actions by North Korea.
"North Korea continued to prioritize the theft of cryptocurrency funds, conducting software supply-chain attacks and targeting their perceived national security adversaries," the report said.
The growing role of big data and AI in elections has raised concerns about voter privacy, electoral integrity, and the potential for undue influence through targeted and personalized messaging—as political campaigns themselves have increasingly utilized data analytics to micro-target voters with tailored advertising and outreach based on detailed voter profiles.
For instance, the 2012 Obama campaign was lauded for its sophisticated data operations identifying and mobilizing supporters. Similarly, the 2016 Trump campaign leveraged data on 1.6 million volunteers to organize grassroots efforts.
There have also been controversies surrounding the misuse of voter data for AI-powered political research, such as the 2015 breach that allowed the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders to access Hillary Clinton campaign data and Cambridge Analytica's unauthorized harvesting of Facebook user data for targeted political ads.
Regulators are now rushing to establish rules and oversight for the use of AI in elections. Several U.S. states have introduced bills to regulate deepfakes and deceptive AI content, including efforts to require disclosure and labeling alongside a push by President Biden to tackle this issue. The European Union is also implementing its Artificial Intelligence Act, which it describes as the world's first comprehensive AI law that will include regulations around AI use in elections. The most notable and polarizing effort, however, is likely the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” which seeks to ban TikTok in the U.S.
“The reason why TikTok is so successful, the reason why it’s so attractive, is because it knows you better than you know yourself, and the more you use it, the more it learns,” Senator Marco Rubio said during an annual Worldwide Threats Assessment hearing. “They happen to control a company that owns one of the world’s best artificial intelligence algorithms. It’s the one that’s used in this country by TikTok, and it uses the data of Americans to basically read your mind and predict what videos you want to see.”
However, some argue the most pressing threats come from the distribution of false and harmful content on social media platforms, rather than pure AI content creation. Tech companies have signed an accord to adopt measures against AI misuse, but when it comes to containing misinformation and determining who is responsible for posting it, social media regulation seems to be less clear —even compared to the AI space.
Bitwise donated $100,000 to support Ethereum open source developers. When the Bitwise Ethereum ETF ($ETHW) was launched in July 2024, Bitwise promised to give back 10% of ETHW gross profit to the Ethereum ecosystem every year. It is reported that this is Bitwise's first annual donation for 2024. The funds will be used for two non-profit projects, Protocol Guild and the PBS Foundation. Previously, Bitwise also announced that it has donated $150,000 to support Bitcoin open source developers.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, today ten US Bitcoin ETFs have a net outflow of 1288 BTC ($124.38 million), of which Bitwise has outflow of 1198 BTC ($115.65 million), and currently Bitwise holds 39,954 BTC ($3.86 billion);
Nine Ethereum ETFs had net inflows of 934 ETH ($2.55 million), of which Fidelity had inflows of 1,749 ETH ($4.77 million) and currently holds 458,653 ETH ($1.25 billion).
Slow Mist founder Cosine posted on the X platform that someone was posing as a Slow Mist employee to cheat, poison, and steal coins, alerting users to pay attention.
Mr. Cosine added that he had enough information about the people involved, including another active X account, to advise him to return the stolen funds.
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According to BlockBorks, packaging asset startup Universal completed a $9 million financing, with a16z leading the investment. Other specific information has not been disclosed yet.
According to Jin Ten, U.S. stocks opened, with the Dow down 137 points, the S & P 500 index down 0.2 percent, and the Nasdaq down 0.2 percent. Some star technology stocks weakened, with Intel (INTC. O) down 4.9 percent, Micron (MU. O) down 0.7 percent, and Meta Platforms (META. O) down 1.4 percent. In terms of cryptocurrency concept stocks, Strategy rose 1.43 percent and Coinbase rose 0.75 percent.
Universal, a cross-chain asset packaging protocol, completed a $9 million funding round led by a16z. This round of financing will be used to scale the business and strengthen the front-end user experience in addition to continuing to distribute new assets through other DApps. The long-term goal of the Universal team is to make its packaged asset service as popular as WBTC (packaged bitcoin).
On February 19, according to The Information, DeepSeek has so far not raised external funding, in part to avoid pressure from investors to commercialize its product too quickly. But since the company's artificial intelligence chatbot app became an overnight success a few weeks ago, the company has considered launching a new initiative due to the need for more artificial intelligence chips and servers to handle the rapidly growing use and support model development, according to people familiar wi...