By ALI SWENSON | Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — A video that uses an artificial intelligence voice-cloning tool to mimic the voice of Vice President Kamala Harris saying things she did not say is raising concerns about the power of AI to mislead with Election Day about three months away.
The video gained attention after tech billionaire Elon Musk shared it on his social media platform X on Friday without explicitly noting it was originally released as parody.
By late Sunday, Musk had clarified the video was intended as satire, pinning the original creator’s post to his profile and using a pun to make the point that parody is not a crime.
The video uses many of the same visuals as a real ad that Harris, the likely Democratic president nominee, released launching her campaign. But the fake ad swaps out Harris’ voice-over audio with an AI-generated voice that convincingly impersonates Harris.
“I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate,” the AI voice says in the video. It claims Harris is a “diversity hire” because she is a woman and a person of color, and it says she doesn’t know “the first thing about running the country.” The video retains “Harris for President” branding. It also adds in some authentic past clips of Harris.
Mia Ehrenberg, a Harris campaign spokesperson, said in an email to The Associated Press: “We believe the American people want the real freedom, opportunity and security Vice President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”
The widely shared video is an example of how lifelike AI-generated images, videos or audio clips have been utilized both to poke fun and to mislead about politics as the United States draws closer to the presidential election. It exposes how, as high-quality AI tools have become far more accessible, there remains a lack of significant federal action to regulate their use, leaving…
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