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With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, North Carolinians are getting bombarded with political ads in the mail, on TV and through social media. But as campaigns increasingly turn to artificial intelligence, voters are left to wonder whether the images and videos are authentic or generated.
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Candidates and advocacy groups across the country are using AI to create cheap and often bizarre campaign ads depicting near-lifelike representations of their opponents saying or doing unsavory things.
In North Carolina, one group posted an AI-generated video depicting a Democratic candidate for state Senate working on a devil-like creature’s behalf, while his Republican opponent was shown receiving an endorsement from Jesus Christ.
Although 31 states have enacted some form of regulation for AI in political campaigning, North Carolina has not — despite several attempts to do so. This means candidates in this state are more or less free to use AI however they please in their campaign ads.
Last year, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers sponsored House Bill 375, which would have required campaigns to disclose if they used AI to create any part of their ad. The bill never made it to a committee hearing.
And earlier this year, when the legislature took up HB 301, a broad bill addressing social media use for minors and AI education, Republican leadership rejected a series of amendments proposed by Democrats — one of which would have required disclosures if AI is used in advertising.
“People don’t know what is real or what is false,” said state Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch, who proposed the amendment.
Republican state Sen. Warren Daniel moved to kill the amendment, but said that “there might be a few things we could agree on if we had enough time to work on it.”
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Despite the lack of regulations, some candidates have opted to disclose their AI usage anyway — but it hasn’t stopped controversy.
In one of this year’s most competitive state Senate races, incumbent Republican state Sen. Michael Lee of New Hanover County ran an AI-generated ad depicting his Democratic opponent as a yoga teacher contorting her body in strange and physically impossible poses.
“You guessed it! AI was definitely used to generate these silly video clips,” a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen read.
The candidate in question, Jessica Bichler, sent Lee’s campaign a cease-and-desist letter demanding that he stop running the ad, WECT reported.
These controversial ads and public polling on AI show Americans are growing increasingly suspicious of the technology, Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University, said.
“People are more concerned than they ever were before, and they are very concerned about AI’s role in politics,” he said. “Yet the General Assembly does not seem to be responding.”
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