AI in US elections: “Not a smoking gun, but a game changer”
Next Tuesday, Americans will elect a new president. According to university professor of AI & Society Claes de Vreese, the outcome partly depends on how they used the new weapon in their campaign: Artificial intelligence. “AI has changed election campaigns forever”
Shocked reactions from violinist André Rieu last week: X-owner Elon Musk posted a pro-Trump video with computer-generated explosions, deepfake faces and via AI the inclusion of images of Maastricht Rieu and singer Emma Kok. “Most of Musk's videos are a kind of satire, but this one clearly has a political message,’ argues Claes de Vreese. De Vreese has also already seen mocking AI videos of a dancing Musk and Trump, which he says are a new part of the use of artificial intelligence in election campaigns. “There are almost no elections in the world without the use of AI”.
Calling Biden
Tech entrepreneur Musk may not be part of Republican Trump’s campaign team, but both Trump’s and Democratic presidential candidate Harris’ teams are deploying AI themselves. A key means for both US candidates to recruit voters is, for example, phone calls with citizens. “Members of campaign teams call potential voters during election time,” says De Vreese. This already involved pre-recorded tapes to save time. Answering people who spoke back was of course impossible.
“Nowadays, however, you can also have AI chatbots respond to what people say back,” says de Vreese. In the January 2024 primaries, a private citizen managed to call Democrats via such an AI voice using Biden's voice to supposedly tell them to stay home. Dangerous, thought the Federal Communications Commission, which banned such AI calls in February.
Taylor Swift
However, AI images were also actively used by presidential candidate Trump, who in August posted photos of singer Taylor Swift and her fans supposedly in favour of Trump. De Vreese: “A lot of people fall for that anyway. That could help Trump quite a bit, De Vreese thinks, where Swift, the biggest musician in the United States, actually never declared herself in favour of any party. Trump also accused, without evidence, his opposing candidate Harris of using AI to make crowds look bigger in photos. “Yet it is Trump who uses most AI images.”
Although that does not necessarily mean that the Republican presidential candidate benefits most from the development of AI, De Vreese suspects. “Artificial intelligence is also deployed within the campaign teams themselves.” For example, Harris and her team would use a lot of AI in communications, inward and outward. “Think of automatically generated emails, posts on social media or communications for supporters. The amount of that we just don’t know.”
Chatgpt
According to De Vreese, the advent of AI also has major advantages within the elections. “Information reaches different groups of citizens much more easily.’ For example, US citizens can submit all their questions about the candidates to chatgpt, and their views reach internet users faster via smart AI. “This makes AI primarily a game changer for online users. Anyone can deploy it via social media themselves.”
Control over the use of artificial intelligence should therefore start with social media companies like Meta (of Instagram and Facebook) and X, says De Vreese. “They can ironically often use AI tools to control AI.” Further regulations to counter disinformation via AI have yet to be implemented or even developed, the professor concludes.
Russia
Thus, even foreign powers, such as Russia, can still influence elections without strong legislation by using false information through AI. Technology is simply developing faster than regulation. And that can enable disinformation, De Vreese believes. “Foreign states and also parties in the country itself can now still influence, alter, obscure the online info that reaches voters.”
“Yet an election of either candidate will not yet be able to point to direct influence via AI by a foreign country or by that party itself,” says De Vreese. He sees such influence as “too high a bar for AI” for the time being. Nevertheless, the discussion on the regulation of AI within elections should also be much more prevalent in Europe and the Netherlands, De Vreese believes. In India and Indonesia, through AI tools. so-called messages from deceased police were already being used. Such tools are also coming to Western elections without regulation, De Vreese believes. “The outcome of the US elections now will not be a smoking gun for AI influence, but artificial intelligence has changed election campaigns forever.”
