A Democratic political consultant has been indicted over his role in launching AI-generated robocalls imitating US President Joe Biden
A Democratic political consultant has been indicted concerning the dissemination of robocalls that replicated the voice of United States President Joe Biden and were generated by artificial intelligence.
The indictment of New Orleans political consultant Steven Kramer on May 23, while employed by rival candidate Dean Phillips, was reported by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. Kramer was found guilty of impersonating a candidate during the Democratic primary election in New Hampshire.
Allegedly, he generated and distributed thousands of robocalls to New Hampshire residents impersonating the voice of President Biden, urging them not to vote, using artificial intelligence.
The fraudulent phone calls conveyed a message urging recipients to “save [their] vote for the November election” adding, “Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.”
The 54-year-old was charged with thirteen counts of felony voter suppression and thirteen counts of misdemeanour impersonation by Attorney General John Formella.
Kramer was proposed to pay a $6 million fine by the Federal Communications Commission because the deepfake robocalls violated caller ID regulations.
Lingo Telecom, the phone company implicated in the transmission of the calls, is now confronted with a proposed $2 million fine from the FCC. This penalty is imposed on the company for “incorrectly labeling [the calls] with the highest level of caller ID attestation and making it less likely that other providers could detect the calls as potentially spoofed.” Attorney General Formella stated:
“I hope that our respective enforcement actions send a strong deterrent signal to anyone who might consider interfering with elections, whether through the use of artificial intelligence or otherwise,”
Kramer provided a defence for his actions, as reported by NBC in February. He asserted in it that he had premeditated the bogus robocalls as a form of civil disobedience intended to draw attention to the perils of artificial intelligence in politics.
“This is a way for me to make a difference, and I have,” he said in the interview at the time before adding, “For $500, I got about $5 million worth of action, whether that be media attention or regulatory action.”
Concerns have increased regarding the possibility that content generated by artificial intelligence could mislead electors before the 2024 elections.
According to Reuters, the Biden campaign has “assembled an interdepartmental team to prepare for the potential effects of AI this election, and has stated that it is ready to face threats such as malicious deepfakes generated by AI.
This election season, an increase in AI-generated deepfakes was reported by journalists in March, with the publication emphasizing the criticality for electors to identify such fakes.
Twenty of the leading artificial intelligence technology companies pledged to prevent their software from influencing elections in February.
