Google parent company Alphabet Inc. will soon require election advertisers to “prominently disclose” when their ads use content generated by artificial intelligence. The updated political content policy announced on Wednesday will go into effect in November in an effort to address the threat of political misinformation presented by AI technology.
The update to Google’s political content policy requires all verified election advertisers to make a “clear and conspicuous” disclosure when the ads “contain synthetic content that inauthentically depicts real or realistic-looking people or events.” Notification about the altered content must be immediately noticeable by users and will apply to images, video, and audio. These notifications must be applied to any content that “makes it appear as if a person is saying or doing something they didn’t say or do” or “alters footage of a real event or generates a realistic portrayal of an event to depict scenes that did not actually take place.”
Minor corrections or alterations, including resizing, lighting adjustments, and red-eye removal, will not be regulated by these policies.
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According to a Google spokesman, this policy update will “help further support responsible political advertising and provide voters with the information they need to make informed decisions” in the year leading up to the 2024 election.
The issue of misleading AI content online has exploded following the rapid advancement of programs like Midjourney, OpenAI, ChatGPT, and Google’s own Bard. Amid the growing concerns about the proliferation of AI in the political world, certain images have already made it into circulation.
In one notable example, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign posted a video featuring AI-generated pictures of Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci, calling out the former president for not firing the controversial public health official.
Donald Trump became a household name by FIRING countless people *on television*
But when it came to Fauci… pic.twitter.com/7Lxwf75NQm
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) June 5, 2023
Other instances include an uncanny image of President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris celebrating reelection posted by the Republican National Committee and images of Donald Trump fighting with police that circulated on Twitter after his numerous indictments.
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