Recent news that the Republican National Committee (RNC) used an AI-generated video to criticize Joe Biden shows that AI is likely to change upcoming elections. Advances in digital technology offer new and faster tools for getting political messages out and can have a profound impact on how voters, politicians and journalists view candidates and campaigns. We are no longer talking about photoshopping a person’s appearance or putting someone’s head on another individual’s body, but an age of massive digital creation and dissemination. The use of easy and cheap templates limits our ability to distinguish between fake and real material, and with uncertainty about how these appeals will affect elections, You will be confronted with the Wild West of campaign claims and counterarguments.
Immediate response
Politicians can use generative AI to instantly respond to campaign developments. For the RNC, it released a new video shortly after Biden’s re-election announcement. It didn’t look like the party did any extensive filming, editing, or reviewing. Rather, it simply asked the tool to produce a video detailing the dystopian future of the United States if Biden were re-elected.
In the next year, response times may be reduced to minutes instead of hours or days. AI can scan the internet, think of strategies, and come up with strong appeals. It could be a speech, press release, photo, joke, or video promoting the superiority of one candidate over another. AI provides an inexpensive way to generate instant responses without relying on highly paid consultants or professional videographers.
Accurate message targeting
AI enables highly accurate audience targeting. This is essential for any political campaign. Candidates do not want to waste money on people who are already supporting or opposing their campaigns. We want to target voters. Due to high levels of political polarization, only a small percentage of voters say they haven’t decided at the presidential level. An April 2023 Emerson College poll found that just 6% of voters were undecided, 43% backed Biden, 41% backed Trump, and 10% backed another candidate. I’m here.
The approaching general election shows how AI can help candidates. Using microdata from commercial data brokers with detailed information about people’s reading, viewing, buying, and political behavior, campaigners can fine-tune their targets to reach people they haven’t decided yet, You can get the exact message across. It helps them reach a final decision. By analyzing this material in real time, AI can pursue specific voting blocks with appeals that support specific policies or partisan views.
Democratizing disinformation
AI has the potential to democratize disinformation by giving even the average person interested in promoting their preferred candidate sophisticated tools. You no longer need to be a coding expert or video guru to generate text, images, videos or programs. They don’t necessarily have to work on a vandal farm to wreak havoc on the opposition. They can use advanced technology to spread the message they want. In that sense, anyone can become a creator of political content, trying to influence voters and the media.
With emotions running high in a high-stakes election, many voters may have an incentive to spread false information designed to undermine the opposition. Being able to increase uncertainty or deploy false statements can be an effective way to sway voters and win the race. The 2024 presidential election could reach tens of thousands of voters in several states, so anything that can steer people in any direction can be decisive.
New technologies allow people to monetize their grievances and make money from the fear, anxiety, or anger of other people. Or you can create a message for people upset about the war in Ukraine. You can also craft messages that leverage social and political grievances and use AI as your primary engagement and persuasion tool.
some guardrails or disclosure requirements
Of particular concern for next year is the lack of guardrails or disclosure requirements to protect voters from fake news, disinformation, or false narratives. Campaign speech is protected speech, so candidates can say and do almost anything they want without risking legal retaliation. Judges have long upheld the right of candidates to say what they say at will, even if their claims are clearly false. Defamation lawsuits of the type seen on Fox News this year are rare when it comes to political candidates and only work with well-resourced litigants.
Neither individuals nor organizations are required to disclose that they used generative AI to create videos or create specific campaign appeals. While the RNC’s voluntary disclosure of recent commercials is commendable, there is little reason to think it will become the norm. People are more likely to use new content tools without publishing them, making it impossible for voters to distinguish between genuine and fake appeals.
