Generative artificial intelligence like OpenAI’s ChatGPT is already used across politics to write drafts of fundraising emails, speeches and other work. 

Generative artificial intelligence like OpenAI’s ChatGPT is already used across politics to write drafts of fundraising emails, speeches and other work. 

Illustration: 731; Getty Images

The Big Take

AI Is Making Politics Easier, Cheaper and More Dangerous

Voters are already seeing AI-generated campaign materials — and likely don’t know it

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 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, Representative Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat, introduced legislation to require disclosure of AI-produced content in political advertisements.