The Arizona Agenda, a local newspaper covering state politics, created a deepfake of Kali Lake to warn readers about a “terrifying new era” of artificial intelligence (AI) interference in elections.
“Hello, I’m Kali Lake. Subscribe to Arizona Agenda for the hard-hitting news and previews of the terrifying artificial intelligence that will emerge in the next election. This video shows how Arizona Agenda It’s an AI deepfake created to show how good it is, Lake seems to say in the video. Created by Newsletter.
Lake, a former news anchor who once ran for governor of Arizona, announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in October. She has the support of former President Trump and is one of the party’s most prominent election deniers. Lake has not accepted defeat in the 2022 gubernatorial election, and she has spent the past few years in court over various challenges to the state’s election procedures.
In the video, Deepfake Lake asked viewers if they realized the video was generated by AI and said the technology would “improve significantly” over the next six months. .
“By the time the November election rolls around, it will be almost impossible to tell the difference between reality and artificial intelligence,” the video says.
The newsletter warned that AI technology has become so accessible and powerful that for the first time this fall’s election “anyone with a computer will be able to create a compelling video.”
The Agenda’s Hank Stephenson wrote that while creating AI-generated videos of politicians is “frighteningly easy,” identifying fake political content is “frighteningly difficult.”
“We have left the era of ‘fake news’ and entered the era of false realities,” Stevenson wrote.
The newsletter acknowledges the risk of creating disinformation, but said it created a deepfake of Lake to show how easy and free it is. Stevenson has put together a guide that shows readers how to spot fake content and warns of the “serious consequences” of largely unregulated technology for politics and society.
The Hill asked Lake for comment on the video.
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