Today, California Common Cause launched a trailblazing new entity – the California Institute for Technology and Democracy (“CITED”) – to fight back against the threats that artificial intelligence, disinformation, deepfakes, and other emerging technologies pose to our elections. The launch comes on Election Day 2023, one year ahead of the monumental 2024 Presidential Election.
The first-of-its-kind entity in California, or in any state, CITED brings together thought leaders in tech, law, public policy, civil rights, civic engagement, and academia to pioneer pragmatic, high-impact, state-level solutions to fight new digital threats to our elections and democracy. Independent of industry and with bipartisan leadership, CITED will provide analysis and guidance divorced from private agendas and partisanship.
The 2024 election is the nation’s first full-fledged AI election, and AI-generated deepfakes will become a routine part of our information ecosystems, where voters will not know what images, audio, and video they can trust. Some such threats are already emerging. With our federal government not positioned to take the urgent action necessary, and with Sacramento missing an unbiased, nonpartisan authority to lead efforts against such threats, CITED seeks to help California fill that leadership gap. …