There is a duty of care parties must undertake with their electioneering

Arena Williams (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāi Tūhoe) is the Labour MP for the Auckland electorate of Manurewa. She is a lawyer and mother of two. Stuart Smith is the National MP for the South Island electorate of Kaikōura. He is a former grape grower, winemaker and inducted as a Fellow of the New Zealand Winegrowers Board for services to the wine industry.

OPINION: Integrity and transparency are vital to maintain confidence our elections are fair and politicians truthful. Will you commit to not using AI faked videos, photos or phoney voters in your party campaigns?

An MP from each side of the House gives their views.

Arena Williams, Labour MP Manurewa

There is growing recognition of the need for ethical and responsible use of AI tools. These tools offer great opportunity, but also pose significant risks that need to be balanced and managed.

Many governments, including New Zealand, are taking steps to understand the opportunities and challenges created by AI.

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The use of AI in the political world has potential to proliferate misleading information and imagery, which may bring into question the integrity and transparency of information throughout any campaign.

A recent example includes a US Republican AI advertising video attacking President Biden, which depicts imagined events, creating a visually realistic violent future intended to influence voters of what the world would supposedly be like should President Biden be re-elected.

The New Zealand Labour Party hasn’t used AI images in any of our designs or advertising in this campaign, and we don’t intend to. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has been clear Labour will run an honest and upfront campaign New Zealanders can trust.

At minimum, I’d think Kiwis would expect AI generated ads should be marked as such. The use of AI in campaign, or any political material, has the potential to influence some of the most important decisions Kiwis will make in an election year.

There is a duty of care that parties must undertake to ensure they are up front and transparent with their electioneering.

Our Government is doing its part to mitigate public risk associated with AI, specifically work within the Christchurch Call on the way algorithms affect radicalisation and how the implications of fast rising tech such as AI and augmented reality can be exploited by terrorists and violent extremists.

Furthermore, the Department of Internal Affairs is currently working alongside other agencies to produce advice on the safe and trustworthy use of AI tools by Government. This initial guidance is focussed on the public service, and I recognise other work will be needed around NZ wide regulatory settings.

I have personally been at the receiving end of malicious AI in the form of faceless social media bots. Not only do they take a toll on the integrity of information out there, but using them in personal attacks is awful.

Our Government is committed to the integrity and transparency of our democratic processes, as such we are committed to avoiding use of misleading AI imagery in political advertising, videos, and other material throughout the 2023 election.

Stuart Smith, National MP Kaikōura

Artificial intelligence is an emerging technology that has evolved incredibly quickly over the last 12 months in particular. The release of platforms like ChatGTP which can almost instantaneously break down complex problems and questions into digestible answers is just one example of a recent breakthrough.

Recently the National Party used artificial intelligence images on our Facebook page to promote our nursing policy and highlight the shocking rates of retail crime. We are actively being innovative and using new and emerging technology to get our message across and promote our brand in an efficient and safe way.

Technology is constantly evolving, and nobody should begrudge others being innovative and ahead of the curve in their work.

Given the huge issues face in New Zealand today we should be focused on the things that really matter to New Zealanders, retail crime, and the crisis in our health sector which are highlighted in our AI-produced images.

Kiwis are clearly feeling the effects of this new crime wave that has run rampant around New Zealand. A recent poll indicated that 95% of Kiwis do not feel safer than they did five years ago – that is a damming indictment and simply not good enough.

Unfortunately, it’s not just that, when retail stores are paying higher insurance premiums and are too scared to invest in their businesses because they are almost expecting to be ram-raided – that hurts New Zealand’s productivity.

Instead of turning the debate into how political parties portray the issues of the day, we should instead focus our attention to keeping people safe on the streets, their places of work and get our health system back on its feet.

That said, people need to be careful with using AI tools to deliberately defame, lie or mislead the public on important issues. Like anything else AI used maliciously can be incredibly damaging and we need to think carefully about how we use it.

I can guarantee to New Zealander’s right now that the National party will be ethical in our approach to using artificial intelligence – but we will not apologise for using a new and innovative technology.

We are ruthlessly focused on the issues that matter to New Zealand, and we will continue to advocate for fresh ideas to solve everyday challenges that Kiwis face.