AI-generated political ads warp reality ahead of U.S. midterms

Senate hopeful remarking on God and gender while scrawling in a Bible with a crayon. But he never filmed the clip: it is yet another artificial intelligence-generated video pushed by a rival ahead of the midterm elections. AI-created ads — placing politicians in fictitious situations — have proliferated ahead of the November elections, a largely unregulated form of political communication that is increasingly being adopted despite a broader backlash against the technology.

Earlier this month, Ken Paxton, a Republican Senate nominee in Texas, posted an AI-generated ad on X depicting his Democratic rival, James Talarico, saying: “Look, I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity.”