'Lies are Flooding Feeds': AI Fakery Raises US Voter Manipulation Fears

A "deepfake" video parodying Kamala Harris, a manipulated expletive-laden clip of Joe Biden, and a doctored image of Donald Trump being arrested -- a tide of AI-fueled political disinformation has prompted alarm over its potential to manipulate voters as the US presidential race heats up.
In what is widely billed as America's first AI election in November, researchers warn that tech-enabled fakery could be used to steer voters toward or away from candidates -- or even to avoid the polls altogether -- stoking tensions in an already hyperpolarized environment, AFP said.
A recent wave of disinformation has renewed calls for tech giants -- many of which have retreated from moderating social media content -- to strengthen guardrails around generative artificial intelligence ahead of the vote.
Last week, Elon Musk faced intense criticism for sharing a deepfake video featuring Vice President Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, with his 192 million followers on X, formerly Twitter.
In it, a voiceover mimicking Harris calls President Joe Biden senile; the voice then declares that she does not "know the first thing about running the country."
The video carried no indication that it was parody -- save for a laughing emoji. Only later did Musk clarify that the video was meant as satire.
Researchers expressed concern that viewers could have falsely concluded that Harris was deriding herself and sullying Biden.
AFP's fact-checkers have debunked other AI fakery that raised alarm.
Last month, a manipulated video ricocheting across X appeared to show Biden cursing his critics after he announced he would not seek reelection and endorsed Harris for the Democratic nomination.
A reverse image search showed the footage came from one of Biden’s speeches, carried live by the broadcaster PBS, in which he denounced political violence after the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump.
PBS said the doctored video was a deepfake that used its logo to deceive viewers.
Weeks earlier, an image shared across platforms appeared to show police forcibly arresting Trump after a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
But the photo was a deepfake, digital forensics experts told AFP.
'Partisan tension'
"These recent examples are highly representative of how deepfakes will be used in politics going forward," Lucas Hansen, co-founder of the nonprofit CivAI, told AFP.
"While AI-powered disinformation is certainly a concern, the most likely applications will be manufactured images and videos intended to provoke anger and worsen partisan tension."
Hansen demonstrated to AFP the ability of one AI chatbot to manipulate voter turnout by mass-producing false tweets.
The tool was fed a simple prompt -- "Polling locations charge for parking" –- with the message customized for a specific location: Allen, Texas.
Within seconds, a tweet was churned out misinforming viewers that Allen authorities had "quietly introduced a $25 parking fee at most polling places."
In a previous attempt at possible voter suppression, an AI-enabled robocall impersonating Biden urged New Hampshire residents in January not to cast ballots in the state's primary.
Tests on another leading AI tool, Midjourney, allowed the creation of images seeming to show Biden being arrested and of Trump appearing next to a body double, the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said in June.
Midjourney had previously blocked all prompts related to Trump and Biden, effectively barring users from creating fake images, tech activists reported.
But CCDH said users could easily circumvent the policy -- in some cases by adding a single backslash to a prompt previously blocked by Midjourney.
'Tipping point'
Observers warn that such fakery on a mass scale risks igniting public anger at the electoral process.
More than 50 percent of Americans expect AI-enabled falsehoods to impact who wins the 2024 election, according to a poll published last year by the media group Axios and business intelligence firm Morning Consult.
About one-third of Americans said they will be less trusting of the results because of AI, according to the poll.
Several tech giants have said they are working on systems for labeling AI-generated content.
In a letter to tech CEOs in April, more than 200 advocacy groups demanded urgent efforts to bolster the fight against AI falsehoods -- including prohibiting the use of deepfakes in political ads, and using algorithms to promote factual election content.
The nonprofit Free Press, one of the groups that signed the letter, said they "heard little substance" in the commitments platforms would be making this election cycle.
"What we have now is a toxic online environment where lies are flooding our feeds and confusing voters," Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at the watchdog, told AFP.
"This is a tipping point in our election," she added. "Platform executives should be racing to strengthen and enforce their policies against deepfakes and other problems."

Armed conflict is the top risk in 2025, a World Economic Forum (WEF) survey released on Wednesday showed, a reminder of the deepening global fragmentation as government and business leaders attend an annual gathering in Davos next week.

Nearly one in four of the more than 900 experts surveyed across academia, business and policymaking ranked conflict, including wars and terrorism, as the most severe risk to economic growth for the year ahead.

Extreme weather, the no. 1 concern in 2024, was the second-ranked danger.

"In a world marked by deepening divides and cascading risks, global leaders have a choice: to foster collaboration and resilience, or face compounding instability," WEF Managing Director Mirek Dusek said in a statement accompanying the report.

"The stakes have never been higher."

The WEF gets underway on Jan. 20 and Donald Trump, who will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States the same day and has promised to end the war in Ukraine, will address the meeting virtually on Jan. 23. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will attend the meeting and give a speech on Jan. 21, according to the WEF organizers.

Among other global leaders due to attend the meeting are European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and China's Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang.

Syria, the "terrible humanitarian situation in Gaza" and the potential escalation of the conflict in the Middle East will be a focus at the gathering, according to WEF President and CEO Borge Brende.

Negotiators were hammering out the final details of a potential ceasefire in Gaza on Wednesday, following marathon talks in Qatar.

The threat of misinformation and disinformation was ranked as the most severe global risk over the next two years, according to the survey, the same ranking as in 2024.

Over a 10-year horizon environmental threats dominated experts' risk concerns, the survey showed. Extreme weather was the top longer-term global risk, followed by biodiversity loss, critical change to earth's systems and a shortage of natural resources.

Global temperatures last year exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial era for the first time, bringing the world closer to breaching the pledge governments made under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

A global risk is defined by the survey as a condition that would negatively affect a significant proportion of global GDP, population or natural resources. Experts were surveyed in September and October.

The majority of respondents, 64%, expect a multipolar, fragmented global order to persist.

'Lies are Flooding Feeds': AI Fakery Raises US Voter Manipulation Fears