‘Truth decay’ could see Australia defeated without fighting, Defence Chief Angus Campbell warns
Angus Campbell warns Australia faces a new era where artificial intelligence and ‘deep fake’ technology could undermine our ability to deter enemies.
Defence Chief Angus Campbell has warned Australia faces a new era of “truth decay” where artificial intelligence and “deep fake” technology could undermine the nation’s ability to deter enemies.
In a rare speech, General Campbell said such technologies could soon make it “impossible for the average person to distinguish fact from fiction”, offering adversaries the ability to “win without fighting”.
He said China’s People’s Liberation Army was an expert at psychological and information warfare techniques that could sow uncertainty in democratic societies and undermine their will to fight.
“Such an approach may bypass the need for a physical attack and strike directly at the psychological, changing perceptions of reality, with profound implications for deterrence,” General Campbell told an Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference on Thursday night.
He said AI was like “a silicon sword of Damocles hanging over our heads”, citing experts including Elon Musk who have warned the technology poses “profound risks to our system of government and the health of our body politic”.
He said the emergence of “deep fake” videos posed national security risks, highlighting a March 2022 example in which a faked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged his troops to lay down their arms.
Generative AI systems like ChatGPT offered potential benefits to society, but also posed serious challenges, General Campbell said.
“This tech future may accelerate truth decay, greatly challenging the quality of what we call public ‘common sense’, seriously damaging public confidence in elected officials, and undermining the trust that binds us,” General Campbell said.
He warned the information environment “will get much, much harder”, threatening the nation’s will to deter adversaries.
“Uncertainty erodes our traditional understanding of deterrence by undermining our calculus of capability, our assurance of credibility, and our clarity of communication,” General Campbell said.
“Uncertainty is the bedfellow of timidity, the perfect foundation from which others may win without fighting.”
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