People have been fretting about online lies influencing elections for a very long time—and for good reason. There may be little evidence of “fake news” actually swaying masses of voters, but it certainly fools some people. And most of us increasingly get our news from social media, where misinformation can spread around the world in seconds.
Add AI deepfakes to the mix and—especially since generative AI got good in the last couple years—it again makes sense that people are freaking out. Except that, again, there’s very little evidence of deepfakes actually changing many people’s minds.
Well, now we have reason to believe that AI deepfakes can influence elections—just not in the way that their distributors were hoping.
Last night, after the first (and probably last) televised debate between presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, Taylor Swift endorsed Harris. This is in itself not a surprise; she endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020. But, four years on, Swift has developed a unique level of superstardom that gives her voice the weight of Tom Hanks, Dolly Parton, and the Pope all rolled into one. And until Tuesday night, she had refrained from using that capital to steer her fans one way or another in this momentous election.
As Swift made clear in her Instagram statement, she is endorsing Harris and running mate Tim Walz because she personally agrees with their demeanor and policies. “Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make,” she insisted to her fans. But she also left no doubt that Trump had largely triggered her decision to go public with her opinion, by disseminating AI deepfakes of her and her fans last month.
The deepfakes in question were deeply silly. The one that featured Swift herself was an obviously bogus riff on the iconic, finger-pointing U.S. Army recruitment poster from the First World War, saying: “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” Further images claimed to depict crowds of “Swifties for Trump,” though all the faces had the uncanny-valley glossy sheen that (for now) continues to betray the AI origins of faked photos. “I accept!” wrote Trump in the Truth Social post that he used to spread the images.
Tech-savvy viewers would not be fooled, and it's quite possible that Trump was sharing the images (which neither he nor his team created) as a joke. But Swift clearly thought some people would be taken in. And—being the world’s premier revenge expert—she saved her payback for the most impactful moment.
“Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site,” she wrote yesterday. “It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
With the election being as tight as it is—and with eight weeks’ worth of potentially course-changing events still to come—it would be foolish to predict that Swift’s intervention will be decisive. But, coming straight after a debate that Harris is widely seen as having won, and given Swift’s exceptional influence, it’s certainly a major boost for the vice president. And without AI, it probably wouldn’t have happened.
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David Meyer
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