The midterm elections are set to be the first election cycle where Artificial Intelligence deepfakes play a significant role, a trend that will only strengthen as the country approaches election day.
AI is almost exclusively used in attack ads against opponents, often portraying them as doing or saying embarrassing things. The highest profile example of AI use is in the Texas Senate race, where the Republican PAC Citizens for Sanity paid six figures for an ad campaign featuring a deepfake version of Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico in a dress singing a 15-second parody of “Favorite Things,” with the lyrics instead singing about his love for transgender children.
In the Texas Senate primary, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Ken Paxton, and Rep. Jasmine Crocket (D-TX) all used AI in different ads.
The most expensive primary race in history, the Kentucky 4th District Republican primary saw incumbent Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) face an AI “throuple” ad showing him in a romance with Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Parts of the ad featured realistic-looking footage of Massie walking, dining, and laughing with the two. The beginning of the ad disclosed it was “satirical” and made with AI, but other ads in the cycle haven’t disclosed the technology’s use.
Some ads featuring AI have been criticized as more misleading, such as one of Crockett’s ads using AI to inflate her crowd size.
Other uses of AI have crossed into the realm of the bizarre. In the Alabama Lt. Gov. runoff Republican primary, Secretary of State Wes Allen made an ad featuring an AI raccoon claiming to be his opponent John Wahl’s pet. The raccoon tried to portray Wahl as weird by insisting he “lives with him in his house” and “sleeps with him in his bed.” The creature then accused Wahl of using a “fake ID to cheat in elections,” claiming he “refused to vote for Trump,” and even “celebrated Ramadan in a Muslim mosque.”
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The ad appears to have sprung from a rumor that Wahl’s fiancee once had a pet raccoon. It failed to catch on and was widely denounced as weird and “creepy.”
The deluge of AI attack ads could come to a sudden halt, however, with anti-AI pushes from Democrats. According to Axios, Democrats are planning to pursue legislation banning or restricting AI use in ads if they win big in November.