It’s a jarring political advertisement: Images of a Chinese attack on Taiwan lead into scenes of looted banks and armed soldiers enforcing martial law in San Francisco. A narrator insinuates that it’s all happening under U.S. President Joe Biden’s watch.
Those visuals in the Republican National Committee’s ad aren’t real, and the scenarios are pretty obviously fictional. But thanks to the handiwork of artificial intelligence, the images look like real life. Within days of the ad appearing online in April, Rep. Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat, introduced legislation to require disclosure of AI-produced content in political advertisements.
"This is going too far,” she said in an interview. Tiny type in the RNC ad reads, "Built entirely with AI imagery.” Clarke’s bill is going nowhere in a legislature controlled by Republicans, but it illustrates the degree to which the rapid advance of artificial intelligence has put Washington on its back foot.