Presidential candidates in 2024 are leveraging AI technology in their election campaigns.

• The 2024 presidential election is approaching, and AI is already playing a significant role in U.S. politics, mainly through government agencies and the campaigns of elected officials.
• Experts predict that with AI's increasing capabilities, staffing campaigns will no longer be necessary for candidates seeking to increase their financial security.
• The experts predict that the technological integrations will remain hidden from the public due to the distrust of the political establishment, absence of AI regulations, and increasing concern about deepfakes.

Despite President Biden's executive order on safe and secure AI, regulations to oversee AI may take time to develop. Meanwhile, AI continues to advance, with both positive and negative consequences. It is also increasingly being used in government and politics.

The 2024 presidential election is approaching, and AI has become increasingly involved in the race, mainly through government agencies and candidate operations. Despite its potential to influence election outcomes, AI's use is likely to remain unregulated and hidden from the public due to many Americans' mistrust of politicians and the lack of AI regulations.

How will AI-assisted elections look over the next year and beyond?

The chief communications officer for nonpartisan health-care advocate organization United States of Care, Kevin Pérez-Allen, stated that AI will aid in data analysis of voting patterns, crafting resident messages, and analyzing social media habits.

As a political campaign communication professional with decades of experience, Pérez-Allen has witnessed the evolution of campaigning with technology. For example, ChatGPT is currently producing first drafts of speeches and campaign marketing materials, as well as being utilized in fundraising emails and texts, he stated.

While AI can replicate information gathering, data analysis, and writing on the campaigning front, it cannot replicate people walking districts or in-person voter engagement, said Pérez-Allen.

Pérez-Allen stated that staffing campaigns will no longer be necessary due to AI's ability to streamline work processes.

Deepfakes on the campaign trail

As a co-founder and managing partner of AI implementation firm Nuvalence, Sinclair Schuller, who has assisted governments in integrating AI, is concerned about the risks of AI in the election space. Schuller predicts that there will be a significant amount of misinformation created both for and against candidates, which will lead to confusion.

Schuller mentioned that deepfakes, which are AI-generated videos, images, and audio that did not actually happen, are often used in political campaigns. He stated that the first person to shout something out usually wins, and political operatives and followers on the fringes could easily create and publish deepfakes to discredit opponents.

The presidential campaign and local races are both being done.

In the February 2023 mayoral primary election in Chicago, a deepfaked video emerged of candidate Paul Vallas appearing to condone police brutality. Despite this, Vallas still lost the race. It is difficult to determine the extent of the video's influence.

If you don't have a verified, direct connection to the source, we cannot rely on it, according to Schuller.

Meta recently updated its rules about ads during election season.

The conflict between the falsely produced content and the mechanisms that attempt to eliminate it will intensify. Utilizing AI to detect and label AI-generated content is more advantageous than post-factually verifying information, Schuller stated, as it can be implemented during the publication of the content and does not rely on individuals having already consumed and believed the information.

The 2024 elections are likely to be chaotic due to the failure of social media to safeguard users from false information generated by AI, as Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and co-founder of Schmidt Futures, recently stated on CNBC.

Even Pérez-Allen, who is optimistic about integrating AI into the election process, acknowledges that allegations are already being used to sway public opinion in ongoing military conflicts. He predicts that this type of communication will only intensify as we approach the 2024 election.

How AI in politics could be a positive

If regulation allows it, the integration of AI into the election space could lead to a positive trajectory.

Pérez-Allen discusses the common narrative of grouping Latino, Black, and suburban women voters into monolithic blocs, despite their individual differences.

AI's ability to create highly targeted and individualized political campaigns could erase that narrative.

Pérez-Allen stated that instead of simply reading a candidate's policy positions on their website, having an AI chatbot on the platform that provides answers and is backed by data can make it feel like having a direct line to the campaign.

He believes that providing campaign messages in the languages and dialects of diverse communities, including Latinos, could be improved through the use of AI for in-booth translation and transcreation, which takes into account the overall nuances of the messaging rather than just individual word accuracy.

Without regulation, there is no straightforward way to implement Biden's executive order.

Jordan Burris, vice president and head of public sector strategy for digital identity verification platform Socure and board member of Identity Theft Resource Center, believes that the directive's ambitious objectives will lead to implementation intricacy and stagnation without a proper sense of urgency and alignment to act. He emphasizes that beyond mere declarations, there must be a shift in budgets, culture, and practices in order to achieve success in reversing the trend.

Pérez-Allen believes that Congress' inability to address technology issues is exemplified by their failure to regulate social media, as evidenced by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 being the most recent regulation on the subject.

Hurd, a former CIA officer and Texas congressman, had proposed an AI policy plan during his 2024 presidential campaign. However, he has since dropped out of the race. Pérez-Allen believes that the remaining candidates are unlikely to discuss AI policy in a public forum unless there is a significant AI-related disaster that occurs either domestically or internationally.

Despite being around for decades and many states easing absentee voting restrictions in the 1980s, integrating AI into actual elections now would cause a "full-blown crisis," Pérez-Allen stated.

Government agencies are utilizing chatbots to handle basic inquiries, and even though the Department of Labor (DoL) is committed to ensuring that AI does not replace workers, the department is employing AI for specific job functions, such as benefits claims verification, resulting in benefits for both the department, its employees, and the public.

Schuller stated that in the near future, chatbots linked to record systems could aid agencies in utilizing AI more intricately, such as for detecting fraud in license applications and other scenarios. He emphasized that the large language model is evolving into a versatile model capable of interpreting uploaded visuals to assist in directing queries.

With AI in the loop, the 2024 election may bring changes in familiar factors such as accessibility, personalization, and information sources.