Election Day is always a tinderbox. It is a day when millions of people hold their breath, waiting to see if the democracy they were promised actually works. But in 2024, that nervous anticipation was quickly poisoned by something familiar: a flood of false accusations and unverified claims spreading faster than the results themselves. From the moment polls opened, social media platforms were heavy with videos, screenshots, and dramatic voiceovers claiming widespread fraud, broken voting machines, and secret schemes to steal the election. Many of these posts were not simply mistakes. They were loaded with anger and partisan energy, designed…

The July sun beat down on Devon and Cornwall, a landscape defined by cream teas, rugged clifftops, and the gentle lapping of waves, yet inside the air-conditioned halls of the University of Exeter, we were building a nightmare. Over two days, a team of academics, military strategists, and cybersecurity experts constructed a digital doppelgänger of Vladimir Putin’s secret state. Using only open-source data, we trained an AI model to think like his finest hackers, assassins, scammers, and propagandists, then—by mutual agreement—unleashed it upon the local emergency services. It felt profoundly foolish for a moment, like accusing a beloved grandparent of…