Reuters World News - Deep fakes want your vote, and North Korea’s wall

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

The rise of AI could mean a whole new landscape for 2024’s US presidential election: watch out for deep fakes and hyper-persuasive chatbots. We unpack North Korea’s secret pandemic project: building a massive border wall with Russia and China. And in Sudan’s largest orphanage, dozens of babies die as their carers escape the fighting. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt-out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, deep fakes and persuasive chatbots get ready for the 2024 presidential race. We uncover North Korea's secret pandemic project, a massive new wall along its border. Plus, inside the largest orphanage in Sudan, where dozens of babies have died as their carers escape the fighting. It's Tuesday, May 30th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to. know from the front lines in 10 minutes. I'm Kim Vinal in London. Let's start with the headlines making news around the world. Dron strikes in Moscow, damaged buildings and forced evacuations early on Tuesday. It's the first attack on civilian areas deep inside Russia since the start

of the war. Moscow blamed Ukraine, but says its air defences destroyed all of the drones. Meanwhile, while in Kyiv, air defences firing into the night sky during the third Russian attack in 24 hours. The pre-dawn strikes killed at least one person and injured four. To Southeast Europe and Kosovo. Violent clashes in the north of the country that have left more than two dozen NATO peacekeeping troops injured. Angry crowds gathered outside three. town halls to protest about disputed local elections.

Serbs who make up the majority in the region oppose ethnic Albanian mayors have taken office. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but Serbia refuses to recognize its sovereignty. The political instability continues too in Senegal. Protesters have clashed with police after lawmakers were blocked from visiting Usman Sanko, a possible candidate for next year's presidential elections. He's on trial for charges of rape and libel that he denies. Sonko says the charges are politically motivated. There's also unrest over President Mackey Sal's refusal

to rule out running for a third term. Two terms is currently the limit in Senegal. All right, it's time for the markets now with Carmel Crimmons. And Carmel, Congress is headed back to discuss the debt deal. How a market's taking that? Yeah, there's a little bit of nervousness. Investors know the debt deal isn't done until it's done, and we've had some hardline Republicans come out and say they won't support it. Now, that's not unexpected, but it is a reminder to investors not to get ahead of themselves. There's also some concern

that even if a deal is passed, Treasury is going to need to scramble to replenish its cash buffers. So if there's a deluge of Treasury bill sales, that will suck liquidity out of the banking sector and tighten the screws on the economy. As the 2024 presidential race accelerates, the rapidly expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence are on a collision course with politics. Alexandra Olmer is one of our political correspondence. She's been digging into how AI is already being used to influence voters. We've already seen deep fakes showing Democrat Hillary Clinton supposedly endorsing Governor Ron DeSantis for

president. Former President Donald Trump himself has shared a doctored video of a CNN anchor stating in rather vulgar terms that Trump had just bested them. So those are just a handful of examples that have cropped up in recent months as we gear up for a very intense 2024 presidential election. How else do experts think the AI could be used to influence or misinform voters in the next election. So the full answer is no one really knows. Some are worried about hyper-persuasive chatbots, for instance, which could even change voters' minds. But the most imminent worry is videos. Deepfakes are now extremely easy, cheap and quick to create. That means campaigns and bad actors could be creating them in a matter of hours, completely revolutionizing how campaigns are done.

What are some of these AI companies doing to control? the technology that they've unleashed onto the world? So Open AI, which was the trailblazer and launched CHATGPT in November, has the most explicit restrictions on politics. And for instance, their image creator, Dali, doesn't allow the creation of political figures. However, we were able to create about a dozen lower level politicians without any problem. And that speaks to just how difficult it is to regulate this technology. Is there anything that can be done from a regulatory standpoint to prevent these technologies from being used in political campaigns? Right. So around the world, lawmakers are trying to figure out how to regulate AI. And the experts I spoke to are most worried about what's

going to be coming from the fringes. The main very public campaigns are probably going to try to keep their hands clean and will probably be more regulated and under scrutiny. But it could be a wild west for everyone else. Before COVID, North Korea's northern frontier offered residents rare access to the outside world and an escape route for those brave enough to take it. But that's no longer the case. During the pandemic, Kim Jong-un's regime erected a new type of iron curtain, a literal wall along a 300-plus mile stretch of border with China and Russia.

Reuters use satellite imagery and accounts from defectors to piece together what was built. Josh Smith is our South Korea bureau chief. Josh, talk us through what you found. It ranges from wire fences to wood fences to what appear to be some kind of concrete walls. But also what's really striking is that in many cases they put double layers of fencing where there had only been one or very small ones. Then they put guard posts really hundreds of new guards. all along where there might have been just one or two. Now there were literally dozens within

sight of each other. What difference does all this concrete and fencing make? Its northern border with China and Russia has been generally a porous area. And so a lot of people really made their living even crossing the border informally there. And some people would even go across and party in in a Chinese town and then come back again. It was kind of that loose sometimes. So how have things changed? The number of defectors has plummeted. There were 67 that made it to South Korea last year compared to more than a thousand in 2019 before the pandemic. A lot of those border towns were heavily dependent, if not entirely dependent on informal trade. That was their whole life, particularly in the wake of the 1990s famines that killed a lot of people and basically

kind of broke the back of the government's ability to provide for people through its centralized planning. So why is Kim Jong-un effectively biting the hand that's feeding the country? Talking to the sources that we did, as they pointed out, that the border trade is a source of revenue for establishment figures all the way back in Pyongyang. And so by cracking down on the border, he actually cements his control all the way back in Pyongyang by making sure that when this border trade resumes, it goes through channels that he controls and that if people want to benefit from that, they need to go and make sure that they're in his good graces.

Now to Sudan, and a warning that some listeners may find this next segment upsetting. As fighting continues in Khartoum, babies in Mygoma, the country's largest orphanage cry for milk. Dozens of infants have died in the facility in the six weeks. since war broke out. Reuters Maggie Michelle broke the story. Maggie, tell us what's happening in this orphanage. Since the beginning of the fighting in Sudan,

the staffers vanished. They couldn't go and take care of the babies. There are around 400 of them, and the babies just didn't have anyone to feed them or change diapers or take care of them. We spoke to the main doctor in the clinic, and she told us that she had a round. 30 or more babies in her clinic only.

So there was no one in the upper floors that had the older babies who age between few days to months to years. The main reason for the deaths started with malnourishment, starvation, dehydration, and it's mainly because they had no one to feed them. So these babies needed to have milk like every three hours. There was no one there. The number of stappers that was supposed to be 80 dropped to two or three or four. And what about the already fragile newborns?

At times, there was only one doctor around them. So many of them also died in the clinic because there wasn't enough improper medical care there. There was no electricity. There's no power because of the fighting, the artillery and the airstrikes, knocked down power supplies to the orphanage. and they were only relying on solar system, which wasn't enough. Mohamed Abdul Rahman, director of emergency operations at Sudan's health ministry, told Reuters a team is investigating what is happening at Mygoma

and will release the results once done. That's it for this edition of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow. To get all of our shows in your podcast feed, make sure you follow us on your favorite platform or download the Reuters app.