Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, posted an artificial intelligence-generated campaign video that could violate a 2024 law aimed at curbing deceptive political communications. His campaign denied that the video violated election laws, but the city and state investigated it anyway and added an AI disclaimer.
On Friday, Blakeman posted a video aimed at criticizing Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani over green energy mandates. The AI video, in the style of the raunchy adult cartoon South Park, included a fictional Hochul and Mamdani in an angry city hall. “Increasing utility costs is actually a good thing because it encourages behavioral change,” Mamdani said. “The transition may cause temporary difficulties,” Hochul later agreed.
The voices sound like two elected representatives. But they never uttered such words. The video recreated their voices through AI. And when Blakeman first posted the video on social media, it did not include a disclaimer that it was created by AI or otherwise manipulated.
As part of the state’s 2024 budget, Hochul and lawmakers will update the state’s election law on deceptive media and include provisions regarding artificial intelligence. Under the law, “substantially deceptive media” includes “any technical expression of speech or conduct” created or modified “by or using software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or other computer-generated or technological means.” Such media requires a disclaimer that the audio, video, and/or images are manipulated.
The law includes exceptions such as parody and satire. After the city and state inquired about the video, Blakeman spokeswoman Madison Spanodemos said an exception applies to campaign videos. “This video is satire and requires no legal disclaimer,” she said in a statement. “Unlike Kathy Hochul, we don’t have anything to hide, so we added it anyway.” The campaign updated X’s post to include the tag “Made with AI,” but the disclaimer still doesn’t appear on the video itself, as required by state law.
The election law provisions are still fairly new and untested, so a judge will have to decide whether the video violates the law. But election attorney Sarah Steiner told City & State that you can’t simply label something controversial as a parody. She said that although keen political observers may recognize that Mr. Hochul and Mr. Mamdani never said what they did in the video, the average viewer could reasonably believe that it was legitimate audio used in the animated video. “If it takes that much insight to understand that it’s not reality, forget about calling it satire. That’s misleading,” Steiner said. “That’s just misleading.”
The issues raised by Blakeman’s video and the depictions of the two New York City executives have less to do with whether the media was created or altered using AI, and more to do with the deceptive nature of such media, said Peter Rosi, director of the Political Communication Ethics Project at George Washington University. “The means of deception are more important than the deception itself,” he said in an email to City and State. “There is no evidence in this ad that the governor or mayor said anything like that, which should raise questions among voters.”
But Loge added that the focus on AI is muddying the waters. “If everyone thinks that everything they don’t like is generated by AI and everything they like is true, then we can’t have the honest conversations that democracy depends on,” he says.
The state Democratic Party criticized Blakeman in a statement to City & State. “It’s clear why Bruce Blakeman’s campaign is centered around lies and fabrications. Trump-first MAGA policies are toxic, and he knows it,” said state Democratic Party spokeswoman Addison Dick. “The AI draws cartoons about your opponent, compares Trump to your wife, and hires an armed MAGA militia in your backyard. Give it a break, Bruce. Please.”
