By Taylor Easterbrook 
Photo Credits: Samantha Wong: Adobe Stock
The usage of artificial intelligence in the 2024 presidential election campaign season has been a growing concern for the majority of the Republican and Democratic parties. Both have stated that they believe it is the responsibility of tech companies to prevent the misuse of AI in Donald Trump and Kamala Harris’ respective presidential campaigns. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, currently, only 20% of Americans say they are between somewhat and very confident in tech companies, including various social media platforms. This raises concerns regarding candidates abusing social media platforms, especially with AI. The risk of widespread misinformation is increased and there is a larger chance that potential voters could be dissuaded from voting at all. Due to AI’s fairly new and unknown nature, there is a significant threat to election infrastructure that both parties are weary of. Further, deepfakes, videos that falsely portray someone as saying or doing something, have become another tool that candidates and their teams can utilize to misinform voters.
For instance, Donald Trump made a false claim accusing Kamala Harris of utilizing a deepfake to exaggerate her audience size at an August rally. On his social media site, Truth Social, he wrote that “there was nobody at the plane, she ‘A.I.’d’ it.” As stated, Trump’s post was proven to be a false claim, but he still effectively heightened concerns regarding the usage of deepfakes and other artificial intelligence resources. While this is a modern issue, presidential candidates have presented misinformation through social media dating back to Trump’s allegations against Barrack Obama’s birth certificate. Once the truth was revealed, he blamed it on Hillary Clinton for starting the “birther movement” regarding Obama’s birthplace. Thus, it is difficult to determine whether AI or claims of AI are making a strong impact on this year’s election, as false statements have practically always been prevalent between past presidential candidates.
Additionally, both Trump and Harris have stated their platform stances on AI. Harris’ campaign pledges to uphold Biden’s AI executive order from last October. Trump has stated that he would repeal this. The order adds safety requirements to prevent the misuse of AI in both the public and private sectors. Therefore, while Harris and Trump have been the target of deepfakes, only Harris has stated that she is a proponent of continuing regulations. A significant Russian deepfake crafted against Harris caused her to be “accused of illegally poaching in Zambia” (The Microsoft Threat Analysis Center). Yet, videos like these are majorly unheard of as they have not generated as much attention as public concern would assume.
For this election, the effects of artificial intelligence are not as widespread as the public fear of such. The candidates have not been known to use AI for their campaigns, but Trump has falsely accused Harris of doing so. AI’s visible implications in this election have been geared toward accusations rather than legitimate claims. With this, the future of AI in the political realm is something to monitor rather than alarm voters in this election.