ICYMI: In New Sacramento Bee Op-Ed, Sen. Schiff Calls for New Guardrails on Fraudulent AI Use, Ad Transparency in Political Campaigning

Washington D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) penned an op-ed in The Sacramento Bee on how California's recent primary elections should serve as a warning sign on the proliferation of AI-generated political campaign advertising, as well as political ads posted by paid influencers.

In the piece, Senator Schiff asserts that current guardrails around campaign advertisements are not keeping up with the changing landscape of technology-empowered political speech, and he lays out his remedy to the problem. Schiff recently introduced two bills, the AI Ads Act to tamp down on fraudulent AI-generated campaign ads, and the PAID Act to require influencers to publicly disclose when they're paid to post by a candidate or political committee.

"We count on voters to make sense of political speech, to evaluate it and to make their decisions at the ballot box. But what happens when the line between fact and fiction is so obscured by modern technology that Americans are not able to believe their own eyes or ears? When voters cannot determine who put out such statements, who is paying for them and who is soliciting their contributions? Current legislation around campaign advertisements is not keeping up with the changing landscape of technology-empowered political speech," wrote the Senator.

Read the full op-ed here and below:

The Sacramento Bee: Sen. Adam Schiff explains bills aimed at combating deepfakes, paid ads

By: U.S. Senator Adam Schiff

This election season, California has seen an onslaught of campaign advertising made possible by artificial intelligence and a growing influencer economy. Some of it is clever, creative and ingenious. But some of it is just plain fraudulent.

Political ads have cropped up showing completely AI-generated scenes. Viral online videos can now utilize a candidates' name, image, voice and likeness to parody their positions, or to blatantly misrepresent the content as coming from their opponents. Online influencers have found a growing niche in the ability to reach the voters who trust them, but that trust has not always been matched by disclosure or transparency.

We count on voters to make sense of political speech, to evaluate it and to make their decisions at the ballot box. But what happens when the line between fact and fiction is so obscured by modern technology that Americans are not able to believe their own eyes or ears? When voters cannot determine who put out such statements, who is paying for them and who is soliciting their contributions?

Current legislation around campaign advertisements is not keeping up with the changing landscape of technology-empowered political speech. This is why I recently introduced two pieces of legislation designed to address the issue in federal campaigns.

Fraudulent misrepresentation

The AI Ads Act would expand on existing law that prohibits fraudulent misrepresentation of political candidates or committees to content generated by AI, regardless of the extent of the damage.

This would attack the worst kind of abuses, such as when an individual or organization solicits funds by fraudulently representing themselves as someone else, or when they use another person's image, likeness and voice to defraud you into believing the advertisement or statement was put out by someone else. The bill would also codify bipartisan recommendations of the Federal Election Commission. Proving fraud is a high bar, and it should be.

In California's gubernatorial race and Los Angeles' mayoral primary campaign, we saw AI-generated videos posted by candidates Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt. These videos would not be banned under my legislation, because they don't purport to have been put out by their opponents' campaigns or to reflect actual footage of them. Parody has been a staple of campaign advertising since America had its first political campaigns, and nothing in my bill changes that.

Our First Amendment protects a broad swath of political speech even when we don't like it - especially when we don't like it. But a line is crossed when campaigns engage in outright fraud.

Some ads we are seeing this campaign season come very close to the line or cross it. In Georgia's Senate race, Congressman Mike Collins - who will face off against Senator Jon Ossoff in November - created a deepfake video deceptively showing Ossoff's image, likeness and voice making a series of claims and statements he never made.

Ads like these are the tip of the spear on the low-cost, easy-to-make AI-generated ads that appear intended to deliberately deceive their audience. Sadly, we're going to see a lot more of them. And when someone uses generative AI to create a fraudulent political ad or solicitation, we need to make sure they can be held accountable in civil proceedings for violations of federal election law.

Political ad transparency

We must also take steps to improve transparency around political ads posted by paid influencers, who are trusted sources of information for voters online. Although Americans are increasingly getting their news from internet creators, there is no requirement that these online personalities disclose when they are being paid for their political posts.

We saw a proliferation of paid influencer content in the California governor's race, and with the 2028 presidential election on the horizon, much more is on the way.

The PAID Act, which I introduced with Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside, requires clear and prominent disclaimers on posts by online influencers that have been paid for by political committees or candidates. Voters should know when influencers are being paid by a campaign to promote that campaign's message, just as we require of any other form of political advertising in federal campaigns.

It is already difficult to tell what is real and what is not in modern campaign advertising without the compounding challenges posed by AI and the evolution of the influencer economy. These innovations are the wave of the future. That can be a good thing - provided there is also transparency, disclosure and accountability.

U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, D-CA, serves on the Agriculture, Judiciary, Small Business and Environment and Public Works Committees and is a member of the Senate National Security Working Group.

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