A.I.'s Use in Elections Sets Off a Scramble for Guardrails - The New York Times

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A.I.'s Use in Elections Sets Off a Scramble for Guardrails - The New York Times

Gaps in campaign rules allow politicians to spread images and messaging generated by increasingly powerful artificial intelligence technology. Fake images of downtown Toronto, generated by artificial intelligence, illustrated a mayoral candidate’s campaign material. June 25, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET In Toronto, a candidate in this week’s mayoral election who vows to clear homeless encampments released a set of campaign promises illustrated by artificial intelligence, including fake dystopian images of people camped out on a downtown street and a fabricated image of tents set up in a park. In New Zealand, a political party posted a realistic-looking rendering on Instagram of fake robbers rampaging through a jewelry shop. In Chicago, the runner-up in the mayoral vote in April complained that a Twitter account masquerading as a news outlet had used A.I. to clone his voice in a way that suggested he condoned police brutality. What began a few months ago as a slow drip of fund-raising emails and promotional images composed by A.I. for political campaigns has turned into a steady stream of campaign materials created by the technology, rewriting the political playbook for democratic elections around the world. Increasingly, political consultants, election researchers and lawmakers say setting up new guardrails, such as legislation reining in synthetically generated ads, should be an urgent priority. Existing defenses, such as social media rules and services that claim to detect A.I. content, have failed to do much to slow the tide. As the 2024 U.S. presidential race starts to heat up, some of the campaigns are already testing the technology. The Republican National Committee released a video with artificially generated images of doomsday scenarios after President Biden announced his re-election bid, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida posted fake images of former President Donald J. Trump with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former health official. The Democratic Party experimented with fund-raising messages drafted by artificial intelligence in the spring — and found that they were often more effective at encouraging engagement and donations than copy written entirely by humans. Some politicians see artificial intelligence as a way to help reduce campaign costs, by using it to create instant responses to debate questions or attack ads, or to analyze data that might otherwise require expensive experts. At the same time, the technology has the potential to spread disinformation to a wide audience. An unflattering fake video, an email blast full of false narratives churned out by computer or a fabricated image of urban decay can reinforce prejudices and widen the partisan divide by showing voters what they expect to see, experts say. The technology is already far more powerful than manual manipulation — not perfect, but fast improving and easy to learn. In May, the chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman, whose company helped kick off an artificial intelligence boom last year with its popular ChatGPT chatbot, told a Senate subcommittee that he was nervous about election season. He said the technology’s ability “to manipulate, to persuade, to provide sort of one-on-one interactive disinformation” was “a significant area of concern.” Representative Yvette D. Clarke, a Democrat from New York, said in a statement last month that the 2024 election cycle “is poised to be the first election where A.I.-generated content is prevalent.” She and other congressional Democrats, including Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, have introduced legislation that would require political ads that used artificially generated material to carry a disclaimer. A similar bill in Washington State was recently signed into law. The American Association of Political Consultants recently condemned the use of deepfake content in political campaigns as a violation of its ethics code. “People are going to be tempted to push the envelope and see where they can take things,” said Larry Huynh, the group’s incoming president. “As with any tool, there can be bad uses and bad actions using them to lie to voters, to mislead voters, to create a belief in something that doesn’t exist.” The technology’s recent intrusion into politics came as a surprise in Toronto, a city that supports a thriving ecosy...