BUDAPEST – In the dim glow of a computer screen, a new kind of political operative is working around the clock. It doesn’t get tired, it doesn’t demand a salary, and it can generate a near-infinite stream of persuasive text, images, and audio in seconds. This operative is an artificial intelligence, and its digital fingerprints are becoming increasingly visible across the Hungarian online landscape, raising alarms about the integrity of next year’s pivotal elections.
As Hungary prepares for elections that are expected to be a key test for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s long-standing government, the political battlefield is expanding from town squares and television screens into the nebulous realm of social media feeds and comment sections. Here, a silent, scalable, and sophisticated campaign is underway, powered not by human teams, but by algorithms.
The New Campaign Tool: Scale, Speed, and Anonymity
Political strategists worldwide are leveraging AI for its triple-threat advantage: scale, speed, and anonymity.
- Scale: Where a human team might draft a few dozen social media posts or blog comments in a day, an AI model can generate thousands, tailored to different demographics and platforms. This allows political actors to flood the digital sphere with their messaging, effectively drowning out opposing views through sheer volume.
- Speed: AI tools can instantly generate responses to breaking news or political scandals, ensuring a campaign’s narrative is the first to take hold. A rival candidate’s gaffe can be met within minutes by a wave of AI-generated memes, critical articles, and outraged social media posts.
- Anonymity: Perhaps most concerningly, AI-generated content is notoriously difficult to trace. Fake profiles, or “bots,” can be given convincing, AI-written biographies and posting histories, making them appear as genuine, concerned citizens. This creates an artificial perception of consensus or outrage, a phenomenon known as “astroturfing.”
In Hungary, researchers and journalists are already spotting the signs. Clusters of newly created accounts, often with auto-generated names, post eerily similar, grammatically perfect Hungarian text defending government policies or attacking the opposition. Pro-government media outlets and partisan websites are saturated with articles that bear the hallmarks of AI augmentation—fluent but sometimes generic, repetitive, or lacking in deep analytical insight.
“We are seeing a dramatic increase in low-quality, high-volume content that aims not to inform, but to overwhelm,” says Dr. Katalin Miklóssy, a researcher at the Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest, who studies disinformation. “The goal is to create so much noise that the average voter becomes fatigued, confused, and ultimately disengaged from factual debate. AI is the perfect engine for this strategy.”
Beyond Text: The Deepfake Danger on the Horizon
While text-based content is the current front line, experts warn that more advanced AI threats are looming. Audio and video “deepfakes” – hyper-realistic media where a person is made to say or do something they never did – represent a potential election-day bombshell.
Imagine a fabricated audio clip, released hours before polls open, purporting to show an opposition leader admitting to a secret plan or making a deeply offensive remark. The virality of such content, combined with the near-impossibility of debunking it in time, could swing a close election.
“The technology to create convincing deepfakes is already here. It’s only a matter of time before it’s deployed in a coordinated political attack,” warns a cybersecurity analyst based in Central Europe, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic. “For Hungary’s election, this isn’t a hypothetical risk; it’s a clear and present danger.”
A Regulatory Vacuum and an Uphill Battle for Truth
The rapid proliferation of AI content has exposed a significant regulatory vacuum. Hungary, like most nations, has no specific laws governing the use of AI in political campaigning. Existing campaign finance and transparency laws are ill-equipped to handle content generated by anonymous, offshore servers.
Social media platforms, caught in a perpetual game of whack-a-mole, struggle to keep up. While they have policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior, the sophistication and volume of AI-generated posts make them incredibly difficult to police at scale.
This places a heavy burden on civil society, journalists, and the public. Fact-checking organizations, such as Lakmusz, are ramping up their efforts, but they are fundamentally outgunned.
“Our work is becoming exponentially harder,” says a Lakmusz editor. “We used to debunk a few fabricated articles or photos. Now, we are facing a firehose of synthetic content. The disinformation ecosystem is being automated.”
The Future of Democracy in the Age of AI
The situation in Hungary is a microcosm of a global challenge. As the 2024 elections approach, the country stands at a crossroads, serving as a testing ground for how democracies can withstand the automated manipulation of public opinion.
The outcome may depend on a race between two forces: the rapidly advancing technology of deception and the slower, more human efforts to foster digital literacy, robust journalism, and ultimately, a public that is critically aware that not everything it sees online is real.
The digital ghost is in the machine, and it is campaigning hard. Whether Hungarian voters can tell the difference may decide more than just an election; it may determine the very nature of their democratic discourse for years to come.
James