The Download: bird flu concerns, and tracking AI’s impact on elections

Bird flu has been spreading in dairy cows in the US—and the scale is likely to be far worse than it looks. In addition, 14 human cases have been reported in the US since March. Both are worrying developments, say virologists, who fear that the country’s meager response to the virus is putting the entire world at risk of another pandemic.

Infections in dairy cattle, first reported back in March, brought us a step closer to human spread. Since then, the situation has only deteriorated. The virus appears to have passed from cattle to poultry on multiple occasions, and worse, this form of bird flu that is now spreading among cattle could find its way back into migrating birds. If that’s the case, we can expect these birds to take the virus around the world.

So far, although the virus has mutated, it hasn’t acquired any more dangerous mutations—yet. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

AI-generated content doesn’t seem to have swayed recent European elections 

The news: AI-generated falsehoods and deepfakes seem to have had virtually no effect on election results in Europe this year, according to new research. 

The bigger picture: Since the beginning of the generative-AI boom, there has been widespread worry that AI tools could boost bad actors’ ability to spread fake content with the potential to interfere with elections or even sway the results. Those fears now seem unwarranted. The Alan Turing Institute identified just 16 cases of AI-enabled falsehoods or deepfakes that went viral during the UK general election and only 11 cases in the EU and French elections combined, none of which appeared to definitively sway the results.