Republicans Just Normalized Deepfake Campaigning

It's only a matter of time before every single Republican congressional candidate has ads saying, here's my Democratic opponent. Here they are endorsing and giving a hug and a kiss to Fidel Castro. And it won't be real, but it will be believed. Senate's GOP's deepfake Schumer ad sparks outrage. According to Mediaite, Senate Republicans are under fire for releasing an AI generated video of Democratic leader Chuck Schumer making it look like he was there saying something on camera. And it was just an image of his. And this was not some obscure pac. It wasn't some obscure candidate doing this. It was the National Republican Senatorial Committee. They posted the ad on X showing a deepfake Schumer repeating his real quote every day gets better for us about the ongoing government shutdown. The clip carries only a tiny disclaimer in the corner admitting it's AI generated. Critics called it a terrifying news. Even though the quote was genuine, fabricating the video footage of Schumer saying it crosses the line. Normalizing synthetic visuals in campaign ads. Journalist John Levine of the Washington Free Beacon said the ad quote, shows how close we are to the point where voters won't know what's real in 2025. The question isn't who said it, it's who programmed it. Okay, what's the real message here? When the Republican Senatorial Committee, not a group of kids at a college club, are doing this? When the Republican Committee is putting out ads using deep fake video of Democrats, it's only a matter of time before every single Republican congressional candidate has ads saying, here's my Democratic opponent. Here they are endorsing and giving a hug and a kiss to Fidel Castro. And it won't be real, but it will be believed. Let's dig a little deeper here. This is troubling. And now you could say, well, T.J. what's the big deal? They're. They're using a quote. He actually said that every day this gets better and better for us. It's a, it's a quote. So Schumer's actual quote isn't that bad, but it does set a precedent. If you, if you're going to use artificial intelligence generated images of political figures and it looks just like them. We're not talking about a cartoon here. If it looks just like them and sounds like them, then what's real and what isn't? Now, let me be fair here. You know, I'm here as a sane, sensible centrist. It's entirely possible that a Democrat running against A Republican in a congressional district who's down in the polls could say, hey, let's throw whatever against the wall. And they could create an ad that shows their Republican candidate, their Republican adversary, saying, oh, I endorse Hitler and I hate all insert N word. I mean, you can have them say all sorts of wildly, viciously nasty thing. And if it's six days before the election and the local newspapers have all been put out of business by Facebook ads and Google Ads, who's going to know? I mean, that's essentially how George Santos got elected, is there was no local media coverage in his Long island suburban district. So he could just say whatever he wants in direct mail ads and other ads that became reality for people. This does change the game. Now. I think it's particularly odd and frankly sad that the Republican senatorial. I mean, this is a big. This is a big part of the institution of the modern Republican Party and the political establishment. It's one thing if it were just some obscure pack, you know, like the Willie Horton ad that was just a guy, a crazy guy who did that and raised some money. This is the establishment. This is an official arm of the Republican Party. And they're now saying, okay, we're going to use AI generated images of our opponents. And I think it was a test. I think it's, can we get away with this? Okay, we didn't get that much blowback for having a fake AI image of our opponent quoting something real. Next time, let's quote them saying something that's kind of real, but they didn't really say it. And then the time after that, let's have them saying something like, I urge a tax increase on all Americans making more than $30,000 a year. I want the top income tax now to be 80% for anyone who makes more than $30,000 a year. And if you're a Republican and you're behind, why not run an ad saying that against your opponent? If, you know, if facts don't matter, if reality doesn't matter, if there's no such thing as integrity, and it works, I think we are, in fact going to see ads like this. And it does call for regulation. I have to think now, we do live in a world where political candidates are allowed freedom of speech. You can say what you want in a political campaign. In a way. I can't just be bare aspirin and run an ad that says, if you take a Tylenol, you're going to be dead tomorrow. I can't do that. I would be charged with fraud, the ad would be taken down. There's a lot more leniency when it comes to what politicians can say. But that doesn't mean there can't be regulation on the use of artificial intelligence to take someone's image. We do still live in a world where people are supposed to have control of their own image and what's called their right to publicity. So this is indeed, I think, very, very troub.