The use of artificial intelligence in political campaigns and messaging is ramping up. Already in this 2024 presidential race is AI being used to create fake robocalls and news stories and to generate campaign speeches and fundraising emails. The use of AI in political messaging has raised several alarms among experts, as there are currently no federal rules when it comes to using AI generated content in political material.
Peter Loge is the director of the GW School of Media and Public Affairs. Loge has nearly 30 years of experience in politics and communications, including a presidential appointment at the Food and Drug Administration and senior positions for Sen. Edward Kennedy and three members of the U.S. House of Representatives. He currently leads the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at the GW School of Media and Public Affairs and continues to advise advocates and organizations. Loge is an expert in communications and political strategy.
Loge says AI is being used in a number of ways for political campaigns right now and the use of this emerging technology can ultimately undermine public trust.
“Campaigns are using artificial intelligence to predict where voters are, what they care about and how to reach them but they’re also writing fundraising emails, generating first drafts of scripts, first drafts of speeches and at least in one case, making up news stories that aren’t true and putting them on a campaign website,” Loge says.
“There’s a lot of ethical concerns with AI in campaigns. The basic rule of thumb is, there aren’t AI ethics that different from everybody else’s ethics. You have a set of ethics. In a campaign, you should aim to persuade and inform, not deceive and divide. That’s true with AI, with mail, with televions, with speeches,” Loge explains. “A lot of the questions we’re asking about AI are the same questions we’ve asked about rhetoric and persuasion for thousands of years.”
WATCH: Hear more about these ethical considerations from Prof. Loge in this video here.
If you would like to speak with Peter Loge, please contact GW Media Relations Senior Specialist Cate Douglass at [email protected].
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