Here already, and we’re not ready for them.
Rep. Dade Phelan
A recent “deepfaked” ad targeting House Speaker Dade Phelan could inspire further legislation to crack down on doctored imagery in political ads.
At the end of Monday’s hearing of the House Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies, political attorney Andrew Cates suggested the committee should recommend an update to Senate Bill 751 from 2019, which created a Class A misdemeanor offense for distributing a “deep fake video” created with the intent to deceive voters.
“Not to bring up sensitive stuff, but the speaker got hit a couple days ago with a fake image, or a deceptively altered image,” Cates said. “It’s not against the law here.”
That mailer, paid for by the Jeff Yass-bankrolled Club for Growth Action PAC, depicted Phelan in an intimate hug with former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, apparently a remake of Pelosi hugging new House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Less publicized was the flip side of the mailer, which falsely depicted Phelan at a lectern speaking at a Texas House Democratic Caucus news conference.
If the ad was a sore subject among the members of the Texas House, committee Chair Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, didn’t seem to mind.
“It was multiple images, one on each side, and what’s a video but multiple images played really quickly?” Capriglione said, adding that the Legislature may need to update the law.
“The reason, though, is because it’s unfair,” Capriglione continued. “It’s deliberately made to deceive individuals — especially because AI can make things look so realistic and, obviously, neither of those two images actually happened.”
In addition to the ad containing photos, not videos, SB 751 only outlawed deep fake videos within 30 days of an election, and the ad was sent just outside of that time frame.
Cates suggested that the Legislature also expand the law to include radio, sound, speech and text. He also suggested making it a third-degree felony, as that would get the attention of groups who are scared of felonies but unaware of misdemeanors.
Good luck with that, and I mean it sincerely. Among other things, you’re never going to be able to ban this sort of thing at all times so it will always be out there in the wild, some new technology or method will come along that will be outside the scope of the legislation, you’re going to need to figure out an enforcement mechanism that might actually work on PACs as well as on people, and you just know one of those asshole billionaires is going to sue you on “free speech” grounds. We’re so not ready for this.