Back in May, CSIS director Dan Rogers gave a clear-eyed interview to CBC’s The House. He warned Canadians that the upcoming Alberta referendum would be a clear target “for the sort of disinformation or foreign interference that we've seen from players like Russia in the past.”

That a hostile state actor would be interfering in Canadian democracy isn’t surprising or particularly new. But what is seemingly new and novel is the use of AI-generated disinformation meant to be scraped up by AI chatbots in order to provide Albertans with false information about the upcoming referendum, all being done at a scale never seen before — and seemingly done without any concern voiced by either the Alberta or federal government. 

In fact, both the Alberta and federal governments seem much more interested in how we’re going to build out data centres or capitalize on AI to increase worker productivity than they are in figuring out how to keep Canadians safe from some of the more nefarious uses and applications of AI, including trying to impact the vote in Alberta. 

In a recent investigation, CNO’s technology and democracy reporter Rory White uncovered a series of deceptive, AI-generated websites that are all designed to be cited by AI chatbots in an effort to influence the vote in the lead........

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