Taylor Swift, Deepfakes, & How AI Can Affect Elections

Earlier this summer, US presidential candidate Donald Trump posted a carousel of photos on his social media of Taylor Swift, as well as her fans, supporting him and endorsing his campaign this year. The problem with this? Most of those pictures were AI generated, and Taylor Swift has never publicly endorsed Trump’s campaign. 

One of these images, inspired by the iconic Uncle Sam WW2 poster, depicts Taylor Swift as Uncle Sam while she points to the crowd. The picture says ‘Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump’. Another image depicts a group of her fans, known as Swifties, wearing tops with ‘Swifties for Trump’ written on them. This AI photo was actually originally posted in a satire article with the headline ‘Swifties turning to Trump after ISIS foiled Taylor Swift concert’. 

All of the images posted by Trump were AI generated, bar one, a photo taken of a young woman at a recent rally wearing a ‘Swifties for Trump’ shirt. Of course, Trump’s actions caused outrage. Taylor has not publicly endorsed any candidate for the election this year, however in 2020 she openly showed her support for Biden and Harris, and has criticised Trump multiple times throughout his presidency.

During the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, Swift condemned Trump’s reaction towards the protests, tweeting, “After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? ‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’??? We will vote you out in November.”

 

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A post shared by President Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump)

But let’s talk about just how seriously wrong this is. There have been concerns regarding how AI and other technological advancements can impact elections and democracy, and many people believe that governments are unable to deal with these potential impacts. Although AI has been around in some form or another for decades, in recent years its abilities, and therefore its threats, have skyrocketed.

Deepfakes in particular pose a huge threat to the public’s opinion during elections. Deepfakes are AI-generated content, usually in the form of photo, video or audio, that are designed to resemble a real person or event. In the past, it would have been easier to point out these deepfakes, but now it has gotten to the point where a lot of them are uncanny to the real person or place. This content can have a huge impact on elections, and it can tamper with the public’s opinion of a certain politician or party.

Speaking to SiliconRepublic, Tim Callan, the chief compliance officer at Sectigo, explained how deepfake content could impact elections.  He claimed that this kind of AI content could easily be used by or against politicians or political parties in a way that “changes the impression that the average voter is going to have.”

“Usually, this is something defamatory,” he said. “They want to make that politician look bad. But it could be the opposite. There was a rather famous deepfake here in the US during the New Hampshire primary, where a deepfake voice of Joe Biden was being used.”

In the case of Trump’s recent abuse of AI, it’s a good thing that it was quite easy to spot. If the photos had been even a little more realistic, it could have had a profound effect on his campaign. Taylor Swift has a huge and impressionable fan base.

 

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A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

In September of last year, the singer posted on her Instagram story, encouraging her fans to vote. In this post, she directed her fans to the web page of a non-profit organisation called Vote.org, who as a result of that one single post recorded over 35,000 registrations. That shows just how much influence a celebrity of her calibre has, especially when it comes to politics. 

Not only did Trump abuse the trust of his own supporters and potential supporters, but he violated democracy itself by lying to the public about endorsements. Although Trump’s actions will probably be overlooked as another one of his never ending ‘blips’, it should be taken a lot more seriously.

Governments and organisations all over the world are trying to figure out ways to tackle the threat that AI poses to elections. In Ireland, An Coimisiún Toghcháin  (The Electoral Commission) recently published its framework on online electoral process information, political advertising and deceptive AI content. Research teams across Ireland are also investigating ways to identify and tackle the issue.

Big tech companies such as Microsoft, Meta and TikTok are now required to have protocols and measures in place to deal with generative AI and its impact on democratic processes, such as applying internal election teams into their companies. AI, at least at the calibre it’s at now, is relatively new and so it will take time for the world to fully be able to deal with it and contain it, although massive efforts are already being made. 

Words by Aicha Chalouche 

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• trump