This year, more people will vote in elections around the world than in any year in history. Five of the world’s biggest democracies will go to the polls, in India, the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. FP’s newest print issue, “The Year the World Votes,” covers these elections in depth.
But as the adoption of generative artificial intelligence ramps up, so does the risk of exploitation by malicious actors seeking to instill distrust in democratic institutions.
This year at the World Economic Forum, FP’s Ravi Agrawal moderated the session “Protecting Democracy Against Bots and Plots,” in discussion with both government ministers and the CEOs of technology companies. The panel included Jan Lipavský, the Czech Republic’s foreign minister; Smriti Zubin Irani, India’s minister of women and child development; André Kudelski, the chairman of the board and CEO of the Swiss-based Kudelski Group; Alexandra Reeve Givens, the CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology; and Matthew Prince, the co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare.
The panel discussed how voters can decipher the truth given the flood of disinformation, how the rise of nationalism and populism across the globe might be accelerating election subversion trends, whether tech companies are too powerful, and the role of government and lessons to draw from countries that have successfully defended their elections against cyber threats.
