An actual advertisement that Harris, the presumed Democratic presidential contender, aired last week to kick off her campaign, is heavily referenced in this film.
With Election Day just three months away, an edited video that purports to be Vice President Kamala Harris saying things she didn’t say is causing people to worry about the ability of artificial intelligence to deceive. Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk published the video on his social media site X on Friday night, attracting attention even though he did not specifically mention that it was first made as satire.
The film makes extensive use of the identical images from an actual advertisement that Harris, the presumed Democratic contender for president, published last week to kick off her campaign. However, the voiceover in the video is replaced with a different voice that accurately mimics Harris’s. “I, Kamala Harris, am your Democratic candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate,” the woman speaking in the clip states. Given that Harris is a woman and a person of color, it asserts that she is a “diversity hire” and that she lacks “the first thing about running the country.” The “Harris for President” logo is still present in the video. It also includes some real historical segments featuring Harris.
Speaking via email to Mia Ehrenberg, who represented the Harris campaign, she stated, “We believe the American people want the real freedom, opportunity, and security Vice President Harris is offering, not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.” As the US gets closer to the presidential election, realistic Al-generated photos, movies, or audio samples have been used to both make fun of and mislead about politics. This is demonstrated by the widely shared video. It reveals how, despite the fact that high-quality Al tools are now much more widely available, there has been no federal action so far to control their use, with states and social media platforms generally in charge of enforcing Al laws in politics.
The video also poses concerns about how to deal with content that errs on the side of what constitutes acceptable AI use, especially satirical content. The original uploader of the film, a YouTuber by the name of Mr. Reagan, has acknowledged that the edited video is a spoof on both X and YouTube. However, Musk’s post, which the platform claims has had over 123 million views, just has the laughing emoji and the words “This is amazing” as a caption. Users X who are acquainted with the platform might already be aware of the way to get from Musk’s post to the original user’s post, which is where the disclosure can be seen. It is not stated in Musk’s description that they should.
Musk’s post hasn’t yet had a label applied to it, despite suggestions from some users of X’s “community note” feature, which allows users to give context to messages, as of Sunday afternoon. The policies of X state that users “may not share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm.” Some internet users questioned whether his post might be in violation of these policies. Cat memes and satire are allowed under the policy as long as they don’t lead to “significant confusion about the authenticity of the media.” Earlier this month, Musk supported Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump. Email inquiries for comment on Sunday were not immediately answered by Mr. Reagan or Mr. Musk.
After listening to the audio of the phony advertisement, two specialists in Al-generated media verified that a significant portion of it was produced with Al technology. Digital forensics specialist Hany Farid of the University of California, Berkeley, was one of them and claimed that the video demonstrates the effectiveness of deepfakes and generative algorithms. He wrote in an email, “The Al-generated voice is very good. Even though most people won’t believe it is VP Harris’ voice, the video is that much more powerful when the words are in her voice.” According to him, generative Al firms that provide the public with access to voice-cloning and other Al tools ought to do more to make sure their services aren’t utilized in ways that could endanger people or democracy.
Contrary to Farid, Rob Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, stated he believed a large number of people would be duped by the film. According to Weissman, “I don’t think that’s obviously a joke,” during an interview. “I’m sure the majority of people who view it don’t think it’s a joke. Although it’s not excellent, the quality is sufficient. And the reason the majority of people will take it seriously is because it reinforces prevailing ideas that have been expressed about her.” Weissman stated that the video is “the kind of thing that we’ve been warning about.” His organization has pushed for Congress, federal agencies, and states to govern generative AI.
Other generative Al Deepfakes might have attempted to sway voters with comedy, misinformation, or both, both here and abroad. In 2023, phony audio recordings purported to be a candidate in Slovakia talking about intentions to rig a vote and boost beer prices a few days prior to the election. A political action committee’s satirical advertisement from 2022 in Louisiana had the visage of a mayoral candidate from the state overlaid on an actor who was playing a low-achieving high school student. The majority of current U.S. regulation is left to state governments, as Congress has not yet passed laws on Al in politics and federal agencies have only taken minimal action. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that about one-third of states have passed legislation prohibiting the use of Al in political campaigns and elections.
In addition to X, other social media firms have also developed guidelines against the sharing of fake and altered content on their networks. On the video site YouTube, for instance, users risk suspension if they fail to disclose whether they have employed generative artificial intelligence to produce films.
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