Understandably, people have worried that, with such high stakes, the US might be flooded by fake news that drowned out important real news. But biztech reporter Thomas Maxwell tells us it didn’t happen because “people are good at recognizing when an image has been created using the technology”:

In the U.S., the News Literacy Project identified more than 1,000 examples of misinformation about the presidential election, but only 6% was made using AI…

Interestingly, it seems that users on social media were more likely to misidentify real images as being AI-generated than the other way around, but in general, users exhibited a healthy dose of skepticism. And fake media can still be debunked through official communications channels, or through other means like Google reverse image-search.

It is hard to quantify with certainty how many people have been influenced by deepfakes, but the findings that they have been ineffective would make a lot of sense. AI imagery is all over the place these days, but images generated using artificial intelligence still have an off-putting quality to them, exhibiting tell-tale signs of being fake.

“Deepfakes Barely Impacted 2024 Elections Because They Aren’t Very Good, Research Finds,” December 27, 2024

Certainly, legislation isn’t by itself the answer. The deepfake above of US Presidential candidate Kamala Harris, promoted by Elon Musk, now has 7.5 million views, surely far more than it would have had if Gavin Newsom, governor of California, had not made such productions illegal.

Maxwell warns, of course, that the tech is getting better. But it appears that we still have time to develop detection methods that go beyond “That just doesn’t look right/sound right.”

You may also wish to read: California: The New “Deepfakes” Ban Violates the First Amendment! California: Outrage over the AI-generated imitations of Kamala Harris’s voice distracts from the issues around the state’s power grab over media. AB 2839 targets political speech, the most protected form of expression under the First Amendment. There are 7 meritorious challenges. (Richard W. Stevens)