AI is making politics easier, cheaper and more dangerous

AI rapidly permeates politics, making it easier to plan and cheaper to campaign while introducing new dangers. — Designed by macrovector / Freepik

IT is a jarring political advertisement: Images of a Chinese attack on Taiwan lead into scenes of looted banks and armed soldiers enforcing martial law in San Francisco. A narrator insinuates that it’s all happening under President Joe Biden’s watch.

Those visuals in the Republican National Committee’s ad aren’t real, and the scenarios are pretty obviously fictional. But thanks to the handiwork of artificial intelligence (AI), the images look like real life.