Congress is gridlocked. These members are convinced AI legislation could break through
WASHINGTON — A group of bipartisan lawmakers plans to introduce a bill Tuesday that would ban political campaigns and outside political groups from using artificial intelligence to misrepresent the positions of their rivals by impersonating them.
The legislation comes as Congress has failed to regulate the rapidly evolving technology, and experts warn it risks overwhelming voters with disinformation. Those experts have raised particular concerns about the dangers of “deepfakes,” AI-generated videos and memes that can look lifelike and leave voters unsure of what’s real and what’s fake.
Lawmakers said the bill would give the Federal Election Commission the authority to regulate the use of artificial intelligence in elections, in the same way it has regulated other political misrepresentations for decades. The FEC has began to consider such regulations.
“Right now, the FEC doesn’t have the teeth, the regulatory authority, to protect elections,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican who is co-sponsoring the legislation. Other sponsors include Reps. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat; Reps. Derek Kilmer, a Washington Democrat; and Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican from Oregon.
Fitzpatrick and Schiff said the bill was unlikely to pass this year. Still, they said they don’t expect the measure to face much opposition and that it could be tacked on as a must-pass measure in the final days of the congressional session.
Schiff described the bill as a modest first step in addressing the threat posed by deepfakes and other false AI-generated content, saying the simplicity of the legislation was a plus.
“This is probably really the lowest-hanging fruit there is” when it comes to addressing the misuse of AI in politics, Schiff said. “But there’s so much more that we need to do to address the avalanche of misinformation and disinformation.”
Congress has been paralyzed on countless issues in recent years, and regulating AI is no exception.
“This is another example of dysfunction in Congress,” Schiff said.
Schiff and Fitzpatrick aren’t the only ones who believe that artificial intelligence legislation is needed and could become law. Rep. Madeleine Dean, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a Republican from Florida, introduced legislation earlier this month that aims to curb the spread of unauthorized AI-generated deepfakes. A bipartisan group of senators introduced accompanying legislation in the Senate.
Opposition to such legislation is primarily focused on not stifling an emerging technology sector or making it easier for another country to become the center for the AI industry.
Congress also doesn’t want to put a stone in the way of innovation and not let it flourish under the right circumstances, Rep. French Hill, a Republican from Arkansas, said in August at a reception hosted by the Center for AI Safety. “It’s a balancing act.”
The Federal Electoral Commission took its first step towards regulation in August AI-generated deepfakes in political advertising, when a procedural vote was held after rules had to be set about ads that use artificial intelligence to portray political opponents as saying or doing something they are not.
The committee is expected to discuss the matter further on thursday.
The commission’s efforts followed a request from Public Citizen, a progressive consumer rights group, that the agency clarify whether a 1970s law banning “fraudulent misrepresentation” in campaign communications also applies to AI-generated deepfakes. While the election commission has been criticized for ineffectiveness in recent years, it does have the ability to take action against campaigns or groups that violate those laws, often through fines.
Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen who helped lawmakers draft the bill introduced Tuesday, said he was concerned that the anti-fraud law applies only to candidates and not to parties, outside groups and super PACs.
Schiff and Fitzpatrick’s bill would expand the FEC’s jurisdiction to explicitly account for the rapid rise of generative AI in political communications.
Holman noted that some states have passed laws to regulate deepfakes, but said federal legislation was needed to give the Federal Election Commission clear powers.
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This story is part of the Associated Press series “The AI Campaign,” which examines the influence of artificial intelligence on the 2024 election campaign.
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