Ahead of the US presidential elections in November, Republican candidate Donald Trump is sharing AI-generated content on social media. Is that illegal? Or unethical?
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00:00Is US singer Taylor Swift endorsing Donald Trump?
00:03Is US presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaking at a communist event?
00:08Well, both pictures were created with AI.
00:11Both pictures convey a message that is untrue.
00:14And both were shared by Donald Trump, the other US presidential candidate.
00:18The Taylor endorsement one on his account on Truth, the Harris picture on X, formerly
00:24known as Twitter.
00:25Is that legal?
00:26Ethically acceptable?
00:28And is using AI to create misleading pictures the new way to campaign?
00:33US Republican candidate Donald Trump is not the first politician to paint a negative picture
00:38of an opponent with the help of AI.
00:40With this AI-generated post on X, Argentinian president Javier Millet famed his political
00:46adversary Sergio Massa as a communist in 2023.
00:50Massa's supporters, on the other hand, didn't shy away from using AI either, displaying
00:55him in heroic poses.
00:59As election campaigns now largely take place on social media, posts like these are not
01:03being controlled or checked by a publisher.
01:06This would be the case with a newspaper.
01:09In the US, Kamala Harris' campaign is trying to reach a young audience with meme-worthy
01:14content.
01:16But so far they haven't shared any AI content comparable to Trump's posts.
01:20They have been falsely accused of doing so, though.
01:24On Truth Social, Trump shared a post that claimed Harris had faked the size of a crowd
01:29at one of her rallies.
01:31Truth is, Trump himself seems to be the one using the technology much more.
01:36He shared AI images of a fake Swifties for Trump campaign, for example.
01:41This was to make fun of the actual Swifties for Kamala initiative, which has Taylor Swift
01:46fans campaigning on X for the presidential candidate.
01:50Apparently a very small label saying satire indicated that the pictures weren't real.
01:55AI seems to be omnipresent in many political campaigns.
01:58But is this legal?
02:01Well, there are no international rules governing the production and distribution of AI content
02:07and deepfakes.
02:08Platforms like Facebook and Instagram are developing technology to automatically label
02:12AI content, but their efforts haven't been very effective so far.
02:17This leaves the issue to local guidelines.
02:21In the US, only about 20 states have enacted regulations on the use of AI-generated false
02:26images in elections.
02:28However, legal experts doubt that these rules would even apply to the Trump posts mentioned
02:33before.
02:34Typically, these laws only ban depictions of someone doing or saying something in a
02:40convincing way.
02:42So what about the AI images of Swift and Harris?
02:46Well, lawmakers would likely argue that they don't look realistic enough to be covered
02:50by existing regulations.
02:53The Harris image is obviously exaggerated.
02:56And the Swift image doesn't directly depict an opposing candidate.
03:00Moreover, to take legal action against political AI posts in the US, it would need to be proven
03:06in court that they caused harm or injury to voters.
03:11Taylor Swift herself might have a claim, though, because her likeness was used in a
03:16post that falsely issues an endorsement.
03:19However, it remains to be seen if the singer will take legal steps.
03:23There is one application of AI during elections that is explicitly forbidden in the US.
03:29So-called robo-calls.
03:31In these, potential voters are contacted by phone or video call.
03:35Then AI-fabricated audio or video of a politician is used to ask for their support.
03:41But again, this is only illegal in the US.
03:45During India's election period this year, robo-calls were used on a massive scale, with
03:50many people potentially unaware of interacting with an AI clone.
03:55What does that mean for the future?
03:57You could argue that drastic tactics have always been used in election campaigns, especially
04:03when it comes to portraying political opponents in a negative light.
04:07But AI tools can produce tons of images much faster than human illustrators.
04:12And these images can easily be used strategically to create heated discussions online and distract
04:18from important political issues.
04:20What's more, AI generates imagery that looks deceivingly real.
04:25Which means generally we must doubt everything we see online first if we don't want to
04:30fall for fake news.
04:32I think it's a huge challenge for societies when people can't trust what they see and
04:38hear anymore.
04:40What's your opinion on this?
04:41Do we need strict rules for the use of generative AI, especially in a political context, or
04:47would that restrict freedom of expression?
04:50Let us know.