The Era of Deepfakes Is Giving Democrats Heartache
Candidates are increasingly faced with a question: respond to an AI attack ad and give it attention, or ignore it and risk that it voters believe it.
EARLIER THIS MONTH, the Trump-aligned super PAC Citizens for Sanity released an ad attacking James Talarico on trans issues.
That wasn’t a surprise. After all, Republican culture-war attacks against Democrats are about as dog-bites-man as it gets in politics. What stood out about the ad was the content. It was AI-generated, depicting Talarico as Maria von Trapp from The Sound of Music, singing1 about how he wants to change “the gender of all your offspring,” set to the tune of “My Favorite Things.”
Citizens for Sanity didn’t seem to have any hesitation about releasing such a spot. In fact, the group proudly leaked that they were putting six figures behind it.
That left Talarico’s campaign with a decision to make. It could forcefully condemn the ad or even threaten legal action against the group. But doing so would risk a Streisand effect, drawing more attention to the very content it wanted to bury. Alternatively, it could ignore the ad, confident that voters would not see it or would dismiss it if they did. But that risked allowing the spot to gain traction with no pushback.
The campaign chose
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