Adrian Perkins sits for a portrait in his office in Chicago, Thursday, June 13, 2024. When Perkins was running for reelection as mayor of Shreveport, La., in 2022, a satirical TV commercial, paid for by a rival political action committee, used artificial intelligence to depict Perkins as a high school student who had been called into the principal’s office.
Adrian Perkins stands for a portrait in his office in Chicago, Thursday, June 13, 2024. Adrian Perkins looks at the view from his office in Chicago, Thursday, June 13, 2024. The satirical TV commercial, paid for by a rival political action committee, used artificial intelligence to depict Perkins as a high school student who had been called into the principal’s office. Instead of giving a tongue-lashing for cheating on a test or getting in a fight, the principal blasted Perkins for failing to keep communities safe and create jobs.
The technology — which can do everything from streamlining mundane campaign tasks to creating fake images, video or audio — already has been deployed in some national races around the country and has spread far more widely in elections across the globe. Despite its power as a tool to mislead, efforts to regulate it have been piecemeal or delayed, a gap that could have the greatest impact on lower-profile races down the ballot.
“Congress is pathetic,” said U.S. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat who has worked extensively on AI-related legislation but is pessimistic about Congress passing any legislation protecting elections from AI interference this year. Cook said he reviews everything before it is made public. The savings — in both time and money — have let him knock on more doors in the district and attend more in-person campaign events.Cook’s opponent, Republican state Rep. Steven Sainz, said he thinks Cook “hides behind what amounts to a robot instead of authentically communicating his opinions to voters.”