Generative AI could be an authoritarian breakthrough in brainwashing

Generative AI is poised to be the free world's next great gift to authoritarians. The viral launch of ChatGPT -- a system with eerily human-like capabilities in composing essays, poetry and computer code -- has awakened the world's dictators to the transformative power of generative AI to create unique, compelling content at scale. But the fierce debate that has ensued among Western industry leaders on the risks of releasing advanced generative AI tools has largely missed where their effects are likely to be most pernicious: within autocracies. AI companies and the U.S. government alike must institute stricter norms for the development of tools like ChatGPT in full view of their game-changing potential for the world's authoritarians -- before it is too late. So far, concerns around generative AI and autocrats have mostly focused on how these systems can turbocharge Chinese and Russian propaganda efforts in the United States.