California governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) signed three bills on Tuesday aimed at curbing the use of artificial intelligence in creating misleading images or videos in political advertisements.
What Happened: The new laws will immediately make it illegal to create and distribute deepfakes related to elections 120 days before Election Day and 60 days thereafter, reported the Associated Press.
Courts will have the power to halt the distribution of such materials and impose civil penalties.
“Safeguarding the integrity of elections is essential to democracy, and it’s critical that we ensure AI is not deployed to undermine the public’s trust through disinformation — especially in today’s fraught political climate,” Newsom stated.
Large social media platforms like Elon Musk’s X, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, and ByteDance-owned TikTok will be required to remove deceptive material.
Political campaigns will also have to publicly disclose if they are running ads with materials altered by AI.
The governor signed the bills during a conversation with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at an event hosted by the major software company during its annual conference in San Francisco.
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Why It Matters: The new laws were enacted on the same day as members of Congress unveiled federal legislation aiming to stop election deepfakes. The bill would give the Federal Election Commission the power to regulate the use of AI in elections, the report noted.
The misuse of AI in creating deepfakes has been a growing concern. Previously, a study conducted by Google’s DeepMind revealed that deepfakes of politicians and celebrities were more common than AI-assisted cyber attacks.
Earlier this year, AI image creation tools from ChatGPT-parent OpenAI and Microsoft were reported to be fueling election misinformation scandals.
In January 2024, deepfake attacks on public figures, including Taylor Swift and President Joe Biden, also alarmed the White House.
The U.K. was also warned of AI misinformation targeting its 2024 polls.
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