Republicans release AI deepfake of James Talarico as phony videos proliferate in midterm races

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Senate Republicans released an online ad this week in which a real-looking but fake version of a Democratic candidate, fabricated with artificial intelligence, appears to speak directly into the camera for more than a minute.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s deepfake of James Talarico, the Democratic nominee in the US Senate race in Texas, is only the latest in a series of AI-generated creations from the national GOP campaign organization in the past year. But it’s the first featuring a phony version of a candidate talking in a lifelike manner for so long – an example of how far AI technology has come in a short time and an indicator of the direction attack ads may be heading.

“The face and voice are very good. There is a slight misalignment between audio and video, but otherwise this is hyper-realistic and I don’t think that most people would immediately know it is fake,” Hany Farid, a University of California, Berkeley professor specializing in digital forensics, said in an email.

The use of AI deepfakes in campaign advertising raises a host of ethical questions. It has also prompted some bipartisan calls for federal legislation or regulation on the practice, though those ideas have also faced pushback on First Amendment grounds.

The 85-second ad depicts an AI-created “Talarico” appearing to proudly read excerpts from 2021 tweets in which the real Talarico made statements on transgender issues, race and religion and a 2013 tweet in which he recalled having attended a Planned Parenthood event as a teenager. In addition, the ad depicts the fake “Talarico” making new self-praising comments that there is no evidence the real Talarico actually made – praising the past tweets by “saying” things like “oh, this one is so touching” and “oh, I love this one too.”

The ad…

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