Ai in the electoral process: New dimensions of cyberthreats and cybersecurity

Relevance. In today’s digital environment, artificial intelligence is increasingly used both as a tool of political communication and as a means of exerting often a destructive influence on voters. Elections, as one of the key mechanisms underpinning the functioning of democratic societies, are becoming complex, multi-component systems vulnerable to psychological manipulation. Generative artificial intelligence models capable of producing convincing texts, audio, and video have emerged as a new challenge to the security of election campaigns, enabling the scalable creation of disinformation and deepfake content targeted at specific voter groups. In addition, natural language processing models and predictive analytics systems based on big data can be used for microtargeting political messages. This not only violates ethical standards but also undermines equal access to information for all participants in the electoral process. Algorithms that determine voter sentiment can increase the effectiveness of political advertising but simultaneously facilitate the manipulation of voters’ emotional states, contributing to a distorted perception of reality. Objective: to study main domains of opportunities and threats that artifical intelligence offers in the domain of electoral process and desribe possible approaches to containment of artifical intelligence related threats. Results. The psychological and technological dimensions of the potential impact of artificial intelligence technologies on political processes—particularly electoral ones—are examined. It is demonstrated that artificial intelligence introduces qualitatively new cyber threats with the potential to cause critically dangerous disruptions to electoral processes across various countries. The article explores both the destructive and constructive potential of artificial intelligence in the context of electoral campaigns and analyzes current trends in the use of artificial intelligence for political purposes, taking into account both technological tools of influence and methods of protection against emerging threats. The study proposes and outlines the main strategies for countering the misuse of artificial intelligence in electoral processes, in particular, in the regulatory, cybersecurity and educational directions, also offering specific measures within each direction and providing examples of their implementation that are relevant to modern Ukraine.