The Year of the AI Election Wasn’t Quite What Everyone Expected

In the spring, the US saw what was likely its first AI candidate. At the outset of 2024, many suggested that even if not winning office, generative AI would play a pivotal role in—and pose significant risks to—democratic elections, as more than 2 billion people voted in more than 60 countries. “I think concern about misleading deepfakes was taking up a lot of oxygen in the room, when it comes to AI,” says Scott Brennen, director of the Center for Technology Policy at New York University. In the US, some worried they might run afoul of a new bevy of state-level laws that restrict “deceptive” deepfake ads or require disclosure when AI is used in political “I don't think that any campaign or politician or advertiser wants to be a test case, particularly because the way these laws are written, it’s sort of unclear what ‘deceptive’ means,” says Brennen. An analysis of the WIRED AI Elections Project published by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University found that about half the instances of deepfakes weren’t necessarily intended to be deceptive.