AI could sway the 2024 US elections, campaign pros say

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WASHINGTON – Artificial intelligence could transform politics as profoundly as television or radio, providing the early masters of the nascent technology a sizeable — and perhaps decisive — advantage in the upcoming elections, reported tca/dpa.

But even as campaign professionals embrace AI, they worry that the newfound ability to quickly and cheaply generate convincingly deceptive audio and video has troubling implications for a political system already beset by misinformation. How can voters hold politicians accountable for their failings if they believe those failings are fake? How will campaign professionals respond when their candidates are smeared with fabricated “recordings”?

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Despite the widespread anxiety over deepfakes’ effects on democracy, political consultants say they are more excited about generative AI’s potential to tackle boring grunt work and expand their ability to deploy big-race tactics in down-ballot contests.

AI’s real impact on campaigning will be “behind the scenes,” said Tom Newhouse, vice president of digital marketing at Converge Media, a Republican advertising and consulting firm. “It’s going to be improving fundraising capabilities by better targeting, whether that is location targeting, income, hobbies or habits, providing campaigns with up-to-date voter data, more personalized advertising, [or] messages.”

“There are many small campaigns that I think can potentially leverage the tools to [not just] save time, but to create content that may not have been possible otherwise,” said Larry Huynh, a partner at Trilogy Interactive, a Democratic digital marketing firm.

Campaign professionals across the country are now racing to see how they can use these new machine-learning tools to supercharge their work in advance of their first big test: the 2024 presidential elections.

“Anyone who wants to do their job better here — and in any industry, let alone politics — is trying to see how the tool can be beneficial to their work,” said Huynh, who is also the incoming president of the American Association of Political Consultants.

The election pros that CQ Roll Call spoke to all expect AI to give some tech-savvy candidates a big leg up on their opponents.

“Campaigns that can innovate and lean into these tactics are going to have a strategic advantage,” said Newhouse. – Bernama

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