- The Wesleyan Media Project found that $137 million was spent on 220 AI-generated ads through Oct. 11, mostly from Republicans.
- Four states have laws banning certain uses of AI-generated deepfakes in political ads, while 27 others require some form of disclosure of their use.
- No federal law specifically regulates AI-generated political ads.
The big picture: An Axios analysis revealed numerous political ads partially or entirely made by generative AI, sometimes undisclosed.
Georgia Senate: The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Republicans, released a series of fake AI-generated ads depicting Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff receiving beauty treatments.
- The ads mock Ossoff’s reported campaign spending on hair and makeup, saying he “talks pretty” but has “an ugly track record” and “a lot to cover up.”
- Ossoff said in an interview with C-SPAN: “It is deeply disturbing to see…deepfake videos being used to manufacture political advertising.slippery slope towards the destruction of truth in political debate, and the advertisement should be published immediately. »
- The ads do not disclose the use of AI, which Georgia law does not require.
Michigan Senate: A super PAC called Front Line Action used AI in an ad depicting Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed in a fabricated family photo with podcaster Hasan Piker and four women wearing niqabs.
- Another AI-generated scene shows El-Sayed playing a Risk-style board game with his half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, and Piker. It depicts cards bearing statements such as “Death to America,” “Don’t Celebrate Thanksgiving,” and “Celebrate 9/11.”
- The group defended the ad, telling CNN that it is “based on El-Sayed’s own public statements and documented reports and records regarding him and individuals associated with or supporting his campaign.”
- The ad features a written and oral disclosure stating that it was “created in whole or in part with the use of artificial intelligence.”
Governor of New York: Republican Bruce Blakeman’s campaign and allied super PACs have repeatedly used generative AI in ads attacking Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, with varying degrees of disclosure.
- An AI-generated ad released by the Blakeman campaign shows the Tooth Fairy struggling to find money to give to children, saying she “just can’t afford to be the Tooth Fairy in Kathy Hochul’s New York.”
- Another Blakesman spot says on screen: “We asked AI what a truthful Kathy Hochul ad would look like.” The ad features AI-generated scenes in which Hochul attends an upscale dinner and stands outside a police station while a man asks her, “Do you want some crack?”
Governor of Pennsylvania: A new ad from Republican candidate Stacy Garrity features an AI-generated version of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro talking about taxes, abortion and data centers.
- The spot puts this quote in his mouth: “This ad was created with AI, thanks to big, beautiful data centers. The fact is, I was the one who sped up the data centers right here in Pennsylvania, right after they gave me $5 million in political contributions.”
- Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder, in a statement to Axios, called the ad “cheap, dishonest AI bullshit.”
Texas Senate: Democratic candidate James Talarico has been a constant target of AI-generated ads, both during Republican Ken Paxton’s campaign and outside of super PACs.
- A Paxton campaign ad uses AI to depict Talarico defacing a Bible with a pencil and saying, “In the beginning, God wasn’t binary and he wasn’t Christian. And God said, “Let there be six kinds,” and there were.
- Talarico told NBC that he “tried in Parliament to ban AI deepfake videos in political campaigns because they were misleading. They are lying about a candidate in this race.”
6th District of Kentucky: No Going Back PAC, backed by President Trump’s MAGA Inc., has aired several ads using AI to promote Republican congressional candidate Ralph Alvarado.
- One ad features several AI-generated deepfakes of Democrat Zach Dembo, including a scene in which he looks at the camera.
- “I expected them to lie about my past, but I didn’t expect them to lie about my appearance,” Dembo said in a statement to Axios, adding that “using AI to create false or misleading images is the start of a very dangerous path for our democracy.”
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