It seems that artificial intelligence is advancing faster than the speed of light, and a majority of Americans say they’re concerned about realistic deepfake videos impacting political elections.
Throughout last year’s campaign season, AI-generated fake videos and images proliferated. Sometimes the aim was to amuse, but mostly, the idea was to mislead voters or throw a wrench into the wheels of democracy.
In one such case in New Hampshire in January 2024, a robocall with a voice sounding like President Joe Biden appeared to tell voters to skip the state’s primary election. The political consultant who allegedly created that call later was indicted for deterring people from voting.
To better understand deepfakes, we had talked with Oren Etzioni in Seattle. An AI expert, he’s launched a website that uses human and computer tools to inspect files for telltale signs of AI generation.
“When you see an image or a video — we’re visual animals — it’s natural to say, ‘Okay, I see this with my own eyes; I believe it,'” Etzioni said. “Unfortunately, we’ve reached the point where AI is sophisticated enough that it’s easy to fake these images, to fake these videos, so that they look real, but they’re not.”
Scenes that look unlikely still can look convincing. In one case, fake images showed President Donald Trump hugging Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — an attack on Trump’s decision not to fire Fauci.
“The real downside of this, though, is, because we’re all afraid of AI, because there’s so much stuff, anybody following these campaigns is looking at a wall of noise,” said Peter Loge, director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University in the nation’s capital. “We don’t know what’s true, what’s not, what’s fake, what’s not fake, what the candidates are saying, what people are pretending. So, maybe, we don’t believe any of it.”
Loge says the big campaigns have largely avoided AI for their advertising and videos because of the risk of being called out. But smaller campaigns and foreign actors seeking influence can have a large impact without spending much.
It wouldn’t take much for someone with malicious intent to alter the way people see a political candidate, Etzioni said.
“It would take a few dollars,” he said. “We’re not even talking about a hundred dollars. We’re just talking about a few dollars and existing tools.”
It leaves voters to wonder if what they see and hear during campaigns is real or a sophisticated con.
A number of states have passed legislation to ban or punish deepfakes in elections. But California’s law recently was ruled unconstitutional.
Scott Thuman is a correspondent for “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson,” which airs at 10 a.m. Sunday, WJLA (Channel 7) and WBFF (Channel 45).
