New Hampshire officials to investigate AI robocalls mimicking Biden
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The voice in the fake recordings impersonated President Joe Biden's, and the calls were manipulated to seem as if they had been sent by an officer of a Democratic committee.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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NEW HAMPSHIRE – Voters in New Hampshire received robocall messages over the weekend in a voice that was most likely artificially generated to impersonate President Joe Biden’s, urging them not to vote in the primary election on Jan 23, according to the state Attorney-General’s Office.
The fake recordings, which told listeners that “your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday”, were manipulated to seem as if they had been sent by an officer of a Democratic committee, the office said.
The Attorney-General’s Office stressed that voting in the primary would not rule out voters from also casting ballots in the general election in November.
“These messages appear to be an unlawful attempt to disrupt the New Hampshire presidential primary election and to suppress New Hampshire voters,” the office said in a statement. “New Hampshire voters should disregard the content of this message entirely.”
Disinformation and political experts have raised concerns that such deceptive content, known as deepfakes, could become prevalent this election season.
In 2023, the Republican National Committee used the technology to generate a video with images of doomsday scenarios after Mr Biden announced his re-election bid. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis posted fake images of former president Donald Trump – Mr DeSantis’ political rival – with Dr Anthony Fauci, the former health official.
State lawmakers are scrambling to draft Bills to regulate political content produced by artificial intelligence, which has already been used in tight foreign elections to mislead voters.
“The political deepfake moment is here,” Mr Robert Weissman, president of progressive watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a statement. “Policymakers must rush to put in place protections, or we’re facing electoral chaos.”
In New Hampshire, the Attorney-General’s Office began investigating the robocall accusations following a complaint from Ms Kathleen Sullivan, a former chair of the state Democratic Party. In her complaint, Ms Sullivan said that recipients of the unauthorised robocalls saw her husband’s name in their caller ID and were given her personal cellphone number to call to request removal from the call list.
Ms Sullivan, the treasurer of a political committee pushing voters to write Mr Biden’s name in Jan 23’s ballot, wrote in her complaint that “these kinds of tactics, if left unpunished, will only get worse in the future”. NYTIMES
