I joined The Naked Scientists podcast for their 32-minute examination of technology’s role in the US Presidential election.
I describe how we arrived at a razor-thin margin in the race, a week before the vote. I survey the role of social media: “It has overtaken traditional media as the platform of immediacy for seeing the candidates and deciding which one you support.”
What we have seen with Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, effectively turning it into a personal platform to propel his beliefs and alliances, is making it a Donald Trump platform.
The platform might be one where everyone can join in but the one who owns it can politicize it and tilt to make a difference in an election.
I explain why there has been no meaningful attempt at regulation, making us “dependent on those who run the platforms to play fair”.
Then we discuss the place of AI in its generation of images to influence what we see and how we think.
Finally, I take on the issue of foreign interference, from Russia’s support of Trump since 2016 to the operations of Iran and China.
[Editor’s Note: This article in a pro-Trump outlet is from only one poll. Other polls have Harris up in the majority of the swing states.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-2024-president-election-polls-model ]
Trump leading Harris in all but one swing state thanks to strong black support: https://nypost.com/2024/10/31/us-news/trump-takes-all-but-one-swing-state-thanks-to-strong-black-support-polls/
The surveys by AtlasIntel can be found here: https://www.atlasintel.org/poll/usa-swing-states-2024-10-31
Trump is on course for a landslide victory in the electoral college.