‘A lack of trust’: How deepfakes and AI could rattle the US elections
Al Jazeera
At least 20 states have passed regulations against election deepfakes, but federal action remains stalled.
On January 21, Patricia Gingrich was about to sit down for dinner when her landline phone rang. The New Hampshire voter picked up and heard a voice telling her not to vote in the upcoming presidential primary.
“As I listened to it, I thought, gosh, that sounds like Joe Biden,” Gingrich told Al Jazeera. “But the fact that he was saying to save your vote, don’t use it in this next election — I knew Joe Biden would never say that.”
The voice may have sounded like the United States president, but it wasn’t him: It was a deepfake, generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
Experts warn that deepfakes — audio, video or images created using AI tools, with the intent to mislead — pose a high risk to US voters ahead of the November general election, not only by injecting false content into the race but by eroding public trust.
Gingrich said she didn’t fall for the Biden deepfake, but she fears it may have suppressed voter turnout. The message reached nearly 5,000 New Hampshire voters just days before the state’s primary.
