The New Hampshire attorney general’s office said Monday it was investigating reports of an apparent robocall that used artificial intelligence to mimic President Joe Biden’s voice and discourage voters in the state during Tuesday’s primaries to come to the polls.
Attorney General John Formella said the recorded message, which was sent to multiple voters on Sunday, appears to be an illegal attempt to disrupt and suppress the vote. He said voters should “completely ignore the contents of this message.”
A recording of the conversation reviewed by The Associated Press generates a voice similar to Biden’s, which includes his oft-used phrase “What a bunch of malarkey.” It then tells the listener to “save your vote for the November elections.”
“Voting next Tuesday will only allow Republicans to re-elect Donald Trump,” says the voice impersonating Biden. “Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.”
It is not true that voting in Tuesday’s primary will prevent voters from casting ballots in the November general election. Biden is not campaigning in New Hampshire and his name will not appear in Tuesday’s primary after he lifted South Carolina into the lead for the Democratic primary, but his allies are running a write-in campaign for him in the state.
It is not known who is behind the calls, although they falsely appeared to recipients as coming from the personal cell phone number of Kathy Sullivan, a former Democratic Party chair who helps run Granite for America, a super- PAC supporting Biden enrollment. campaign.
Sullivan said she alerted law enforcement and filed a complaint with the attorney general after several voters in the state reported receiving the call Sunday evening.
“This call links back to my personal cell phone number without my consent,” she said in a statement. “It is outright election interference and clearly an attempt to harass me and other New Hampshire voters who plan to register Joe Biden. on Tuesday.”
It was unclear how many people received the call, but a spokesperson for Sullivan said she had heard from at least a dozen people who had received the call Sunday evening. The attorney general’s office said anyone who received the call should email the Justice Department’s Election Law Unit.
Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said in a statement that the campaign is “actively discussing additional actions that should be taken immediately.”
“Spreading disinformation to suppress voting and deliberately undermining free and fair elections will not stand, and fighting back against any attempt to undermine our democracy will remain a top priority for this campaign,” she said.
The apparent attempt at voter suppression using rapidly advancing generative AI technology is an example of what experts warn will make 2024 a year of unprecedented election disinformation around the world.
Generative AI deepfakes have already appeared in campaign ads during the 2024 presidential race, and the technology has been abused in the past year to spread disinformation in multiple elections around the world, from Slovakia to Indonesia and Taiwan.
“We are concerned that generative AI could be weaponized in the upcoming elections and we see what is certainly a sign of things to come,” said Hany Farid, an expert in digital forensics at the University of California, Berkeley, who wrote the analysis assessed. call recording and confirmed that it is a relatively low-quality AI fake.
Katie Dolan, a spokeswoman for the campaign of Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who is challenging Biden in the Democratic primary, said Phillips’ team was not involved and was not aware of the deepfake attempt until a reporter called to request comments.
“Any attempt to discourage voters is a disgrace and an unacceptable affront to democracy,” Dolan said in a statement. “The potential use of AI to manipulate voters is deeply troubling.”
The Trump campaign said it had nothing to do with the recording but declined further comment.
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