With so much for Republicans and Democrats to clash over in this age of hyper-partisanship, there is one thing that they might just agree on: AI-generated deepfake political ads are a threat to robust political debate in an election season.

Two days before the 2024 New Hampshire primary, thousands of voters received calls from what sounded a lot like President Joe Biden, asking voters not to vote in the primary, and instead “save their vote” for the general election. On February 25th, veteran Democratic party operative Steve Kramer admitted to paying stage magician Paul Carpenter to use AI technology to create a replica of Biden’s voice.

Although Kramer was working for the Dean Phillips presidential campaign at the time, the Phillips campaign has denied any knowledge of the incident and has condemned the deception. In Kramer’s statement to NBC News, he called for more regulation to prevent people from doing exactly what he, himself, had just done.

This threat has inspired Wisconsin legislators from both sides of the aisle to propose Assembly Bill 664 that, if it becomes law, will require political ads to include a disclaimer if artificial intelligence is employed in the ad’s content. Veteran political reporter Jack Kelly of Wisconsin Watch has been following this issue and joined the Monday 8 o’Clock Buzz to talk about the issue.

Photo by Mojahid Mottakin on Unsplash

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