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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden's campaign and Democratic candidates are in a fevered race with Republicans over who can best exploit the potential of artificial intelligence, a technology that could transform American elections.
Still smarting from being outmaneuvered on social media by Donald Trump and his allies in 2016, Democratic strategists said they are nevertheless treading carefully in embracing AI tools. So far, Democrats said they are primarily using AI to help them find and motivate voters and better identify and overcome deceptive content.
Jessica Alter, the co-founder and chair of Tech for Campaigns, a political nonprofit that uses data and digital marketing to fight extremism and help down-ballot Democrats, ran an AI-aided experiment across 14 campaigns in Virginia last year.
Emails written by AI, Alter said, brought in between three and four times more fundraising dollars per work hour compared with emails written by staff.
The recent developments in supercharged generative AI have provided candidates and consultants with the ability to generate text and images, clone human voices and create video at unprecedented volume and speed.
That has led disinformation experts to issue increasingly dire warnings about the risks posed by AI's ability to spread falsehoods that could suppress or mislead voters or incite violence.
Those concerns gained urgency after high-profile incidents that included the spread of AI-generated images of former President Donald Trump getting arrested in New York and an AI-created robocall that mimicked Biden's voice telling New Hampshire voters not to cast a ballot.
The Democratic Party has "gotten much better at just shutting up and doing the work and talking about it later," said Jim Messina, a veteran Democratic strategist who managed Obama's winning reelection campaign.
The Trump campaign said in a statement that it "uses a set of proprietary algorithmic tools, like many other campaigns across the country, to help deliver emails more efficiently and prevent sign-up lists from being populated by false information." Spokesman Steven Cheung also said the campaign did not "engage or utilize" any tools supplied by an AI company and declined to comment further.
Scarred by the memories of 2016, the Biden campaign, Democratic candidates and progressives are wrestling with the power of artificial intelligence and nervous about not keeping up with the GOP in embracing the technology, according to interviews with consultants and strategists.
They want to use it in ways that maximize its capabilities without crossing ethical lines. But some said they fear using it could lead to charges of hypocrisy — they have long accused Trump and his allies of engaging in disinformation while the White House has prioritized reining in abuses associated with AI.
'We need to be more vigilant'
The Biden campaign said it is testing AI's ability to help volunteers categorize and analyze a host of data, including notes taken by volunteers after conversations with voters, whether while door-knocking or by phone or text message.
Biden campaign officials said they plan to explore using generative AI this cycle but will adhere to strict rules in deploying it. Among the tactics that are off limits: AI cannot be used to mislead voters, spread disinformation and so-called deepfakes, or deliberately manipulate images. The campaign also forbids the use of AI-generated content in advertising, social media and other such copy without a staff member's review.
The campaign's legal team has created a task force of lawyers and outside experts to respond to misinformation and disinformation, with a focus on AI-generated images and videos. The group is not unlike an internal team formed in the 2020 campaign — known as the "Malarkey Factory," playing off Biden's oft-used phrase, "What a bunch of malarkey."
That group was tasked with monitoring what misinformation was gaining traction online. Rob Flaherty, Biden's deputy campaign manager, said those efforts would continue and suggested some AI tools could be used to combat deepfakes and other such content before they go viral.
"The tools that we're going to use to mitigate the myths and the disinformation is the same, it's just going to have to be at a higher pace," Flaherty said. "It just means we need to be more vigilant, pay more attention, be monitoring things in different places and try some new tools out, but the fundamentals remain the same."
'Dominating the conversation'
The Democratic National Committee said it was an early adopter of Google AI and uses some of its features, including ones that analyze voter registration records to identify patterns of voter removals or additions. It has also experimented with AI to generate fundraising email text and to help interpret voter data it has collected for decades, according to the committee.
Arthur Thompson, the committee's chief technology officer, said the organization believes generative AI is an "incredibly important and impactful technology" to help elect Democrats up and down the ballot.
"At the same time, it's essential that AI is deployed responsibly and to enhance the work of our trained staff, not replace them. We can and must do both, which is why we will continue to keep safeguards in place as we remain at the cutting edge," he said.
Alter said she is concerned that the party might be falling behind in AI because it is being too cautious.
"I understand the downsides of AI and we should address them," Alter said. "But the biggest concern I have right now is that fear is dominating the conversation in the political arena and that is not leading to balanced conversations or helpful outcomes."
Contributing: Alan Suderman and Garance Burke
The Associated Press receives financial assistance from the Omidyar Network to support coverage of artificial intelligence and its impact on society.
