A professor at UC Berkeley says that political ads that use AI should be regulated because they are “spreading lies.”
An AI picture expert said that as the 2024 election cycle gets going, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) should think about whether it needs to make rules to stop political campaigns from using AI to make ads meant to trick voters.
Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in an opinion piece for The Hill that the FEC would have to decide if and how to control a campaign’s use of altered media to help its candidate. “Making changes to the photos is just the first step in spreading lies.”
Presidential campaigns are already using artificial intelligence to trick voters with their ads. Most famously, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s campaign used audio and video made by AI to attack the policies of former President Trump. For example, one video showed a fake picture of Trump lovingly hugging Anthony Fauci.
“The issue, though, is not really about AI or technology,” Farid said. “It’s about the standards we want to hold our current and future leaders to.” “Because of this, it seems very reasonable to demand that our politicians tell the truth.”
A political action committee backing DeSantis made an ad criticizing Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds in Trump’s voice. It looks like the AI voice was based on things Trump wrote on Truth Social but never actually said out loud.
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In another film shared by Trump’s team, artificial intelligence was used to recreate DeSantis’s tweet about running for president in 2024. In the spoof, there was a Twitter Space with fake guests like wealthy Democratic supporter George Soros, World Economic Forum Chair Klaus Schwab, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Adolf Hitler, the devil, and the FBI.
“AI-generated audio, images, and videos will now be used to spread false information,” Farid told Fox News in April. “Now, whenever I hear the president, a candidate, a CEO, or a reporter speak, I have this nagging doubt.”
Last week, the FEC moved forward a petition from the non-profit Public Citizen. The petition calls for AI-generated deceptive content to be exempt from the FEC’s ban on “fraudulent misrepresentation” in campaign advertisements. After the public feedback time ends on Oct. 16, the FEC will consider what to do next.
Lawmakers have also told Fox News that they are worried about how AI will affect votes, especially in the presidential election 2024.
“Right now, we’re in the Wild West,” Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, told Fox News at the end of July. “AI makes it possible not only for creative products to be stolen but also for impersonation, deepfakes, and a lot of other bad things to happen.”
The AI Accountability Act is moving through the House at the same time. If the bill is signed into law, it would tell the Commerce Department to meet with people in business and report threats from AI systems within 18 months.
“The landscape of photo editing is long and varied, and it will continue to change even after generative AI becomes obsolete,” Farid wrote. “The power of generative AI, when combined with the reach and speed of social media distribution and amplification, is a real threat to an information ecosystem that is already full of half-truths, lies, and conspiracies.”
