The 2024 U.S. presidential election will be different from any other elections before, because of artificial intelligence (AI). AI, a technology that can create things like videos, speeches, and images, is being used by political parties to send messages faster than ever before.
For example, the Republican National Committee (RNC) used AI to quickly make a video criticizing President Joe Biden right after he announced he would run for reelection. This is just one example of how AI is changing political campaigns, bringing both good and bad changes.
AI lets political campaigns respond to news in a matter of minutes. In the case of the RNC’s video about Biden, they created an AI-generated video almost instantly after he made his announcement.
In the future, we could see campaigns using AI to create speeches, ads, and other messages in real time, as events happen. This would allow candidates to keep up with the news without spending a lot of money or needing a big team of people to create content. AI can handle the work automatically, making campaigns cheaper and more efficient.
AI helps in analysing data, which helps campaigns find undecided voters who haven’t made up their minds yet about who to vote for. In elections, these undecided voters are very important because they can swing the result one way or another. For example, a survey found that only about six percent of voters are undecided, which makes them crucial for candidates to focus on.
AI can help campaigns figure out what matters to these voters by looking at data about their habits, such as what they read or buy. With this information, candidates can create personalized messages that speak directly to what these voters care about. This makes it easier to win their support.
AI is set to impact elections, with the potential to mislead voters. Chad Sweet, IGP Carnegie Fellow, calls this the “first AI supercharged election.” Recent foreign interference cases reveal tactics used to disrupt elections, highlighting the need for NGOs, Columbia SIPA, and others to act swiftly against such interference.
While AI can help with honest political messaging, it also makes it easier to spread fake news or misleading information. In the past, creating fake videos or news articles required a lot of technical skill. Now, with AI, almost anyone can create convincing fake content without much effort.
This is a big problem because it means more people might use AI to create fake news during elections to confuse voters or spread lies. As political fights get more intense, it’s likely that some groups will use AI to try to trick people. With AI, it’s harder to tell that what you’re seeing or reading is real or fake, which can make it difficult for voters to trust whom to support.
One of the main issues with AI in politics is that there aren’t many rules about how it can be used. In the U.S., political speech is protected by law, even if it’s misleading or false. This means that political campaigns can use AI to create content, whether it’s real or not, without worrying about the law.
While the RNC admitted to using AI in their video about Biden, also there are no laws that force campaigns to tell people when they use AI. This lack of transparency makes it easy for campaigns to manipulate voters, as voters might not even know if the content they’re seeing is AI-generated. Without proper protocols to be followed in campaigns, the use of AI could become a big problem for fair elections
AI is changing entirely how U.S. elections work, and this brings both good and bad consequences. On the one hand, AI helps political campaigns move faster and target voters more accurately. On the other hand, it also makes it easier for fake news and misinformation to spread. With no clear guide to follow how AI is used, voters could be tricked by fake content, and that could harm the elections.
As AI becomes more common in elections, it’s important for voters, lawmakers, and the media to understand its power and potential dangers. Thus AI could seriously affect how elections work and make it harder for voters to know what is true and what is not.
