Legislation seeking to control the use of artificial intelligence to slander opponents in political campaigns is headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis following its final passage in the Florida Senate on Friday.
The bill (HB 919) requires disclosure within any campaign material if a candidate or political committee uses AI with intent to injure a candidate or deceive regarding a ballot issue, and sets minimum requirements for the size of these disclosures.
You don’t have to go too far to see the technology of artificial intelligence and what that can do, especially how that can impact our elections. How that can depict somebody doing something, saying something, being somewhere where in reality they’re not, said bill sponsor Nick DiCeglie, a Republican from Pinellas County.
Our constituents, the state of Florida, they need to know when artificial intelligence is being used in a political advertisement to injure somebody, DeCiglie said.
The measure defines generative artificial intelligence as a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, emulate the structure and characteristics of input data to generate derived synthetic content including images, videos, audio, text, and other digital content.
It prescribes that if the generated content appears to depict a real person performing an action that did not actually occur, and if the generated content was created with intent to injure a candidate or deceive regarding a ballot issue, the political advertisement, electioneering communication, or other miscellaneous advertisement must prominently state the following disclaimer: ‘Created in whole or in part with the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI).’
The bill provides for enforcement through the Florida Election Commission or criminal charges that could bring up to one year in jail and $1,000 in fines.
Democrat Jason Pizzo, representing parts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties, complained that law enforcement is typically loth to charge election crimes during campaigns for fear of influencing the outcomes.
If you’re sending out mailers with me saying I’m in the mafia because I’m Italian and have a couple of bucks, I think I should be able to stop it immediately. If you’re posting where my kids go to school and my home address, I think I should be able to stop it immediately. If you’re making stuff up about people, I think you should be able to stop it immediately, he said.
If wrongdoing is being done, then you get to suffer the consequences while it’s being done so the electorate knows who it’s dealing with.
In April, the Republican National Committee included a disclaimer in an AI-generated video targeting President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, while Never Back Down, the federal super PAC backing Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, used AI without similar disclosure last summer in an ad against President Trump.
The bill aims to prevent the misuse of AI in political ads, protecting candidates from false representation and providing transparency to voters. The move underscores the growing concern over the influence of technology on democratic processes and the need for regulatory measures to maintain the integrity of electoral campaigns.
