Gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman’s AI-generated campaign ad against his opponent, incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul, is absolutely devastating. The effective ad artificially creates a faux Kathy Hochul walking in various settings and uttering statements about what she has done, and will do, for New York.
Of course, the Blakeman slant is a dagger against Hochul. For instance, words are put in Hochul’s mouth to say how she’s helping commuters by making it prohibitively expensive to drive your car or use mass transit.
Or that her priorities are to give free healthcare to sex workers.
Blakeman is using Hochul’s damaging policies against her, which is fair game. But we question whether it should be legal at all in any sphere to use a person’s likeness and create words that come out of their mouth, even though that individual never said those words directly.
The law is still evolving in this area and no one can say that Blakeman has done anything illegal.
A 2024 law in New York simply required a disclaimer to be on AI-generated ads to transparently note that the commercial was made using AI.
Exceptions are made for when something is considered satire.
Other states around the nation are wrestling with this new area of the law as well.
But let’s take it out of the political realm for a moment and just ask in general whether any Americans should be subject to another individual taking their likeness and creating a video creating sound bites out of thin air.
It seems rather icky to us.
Yes, there’s a First Amendment, but we don’t believe it covers deception. Freedom of speech is not absolute, which is why we have slander and libel laws. This, too, is an area that needs more restrictions.
You can criticize a candidate’s positions as much as you want, but it should not be acceptable to generate a video seeking to give the appearance that a person is saying something they never said, whether or not it’s intended to be satirical.