Davos report identifies AI-powered misinformation as the most significant immediate danger globally.

According to a report released on Wednesday by the World Economic Forum, the most pressing immediate danger to the global economy is the proliferation of false and misleading information, powered by advanced artificial intelligence, which has the potential to undermine democracy and create societal divisions.

In its latest Global Risks report, the organization also said that many environmental risks pose the biggest threats in the long term. The report, released ahead of the annual elite gathering of CEOs and world leaders in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos, is based on a survey of nearly 1,500 experts, industry leaders and decision-makers.

The report listed misinformation and disinformation as the most serious risk over the next two years and highlighted how rapid technological advances are also creating new problems or exacerbating existing ones.

The authors worry that the boom in generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT means that the creation of sophisticated synthetic content that can be used to manipulate groups of people is no longer limited to those with special skills.

Artificial intelligence is set to be a hot topic at next week’s Davos meetings, which are expected to be attended by tech company leaders such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and AI industry players such as Yann LeCun, chief AI researcher at Meta.

AI-based misinformation and disinformation is becoming a risk as billions of people in many countries, including major economies such as the US, UK, Indonesia, India, Mexico and Pakistan, take to the polls. year and next year, the report says.

“You can leverage artificial intelligence to do deep fakes and really influence large groups, which really drives misinformation,” said Carolina Klint, director of risk management at Marsh, whose parent company Marsh McLennan co-authored the report with Zurich Insurance Group.

“Societies can become even more polarized” when it’s harder for people to verify the facts, he said. Fake information could also be used to raise questions about the legitimacy of elected governments, “which means that democratic processes can crumble and it also drives social polarization even further,” Klint said.

The rise of artificial intelligence brings with it many other risks, he said. It can empower “malicious actors” by facilitating cyber attacks, such as automating phishing attempts or creating sophisticated malware.

When using artificial intelligence, “you don’t have to be the sharpest tool on the fence to be a malicious actor,” Klint said.

It can even poison data scraped from the Internet to train other AI systems, which is “incredibly difficult to reverse” and could lead to more biases in AI models, he said.

Another major global concern for risk survey respondents focused on climate change.

After disinformation and misinformation, extreme weather is the second most pressing short-term risk.

In the long term – defined as 10 years – extreme weather was described as the No. 1 threat, followed by four other environmental risks: critical change in Earth systems; biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse; and lack of natural resources.

“We may be pushed past that irreversible climate change tipping point” in the next decade, as Earth’s systems undergo long-term changes, Klint said.

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