U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the bipartisan AI Transparency in Elections Act to require disclaimers on political ads with images, audio, or video that are substantially generated by artificial intelligence (AI). The legislation requires political ads created or altered by AI to have a disclaimer, except when AI is used for only minor alterations, such as color editing, cropping, resizing, and other immaterial uses. The bill also requires the Federal Election Commission to address violations of the legislation quickly.

“This bipartisan bill is pretty simple. As we navigate new technology, like AI, we should have confidence that what we are hearing and seeing—especially when it comes to our elections—is factual, and real. Our bill only requires a disclaimer when political ads use AI in a significant way – something I think we can all agree we’d like to know,” said Murkowski.

“As AI continues to evolve into a powerful and widely available tool, Congress must put guardrails in place on the use of AI-generated content in elections so that people know if what they are seeing is real or AI-generated,” said Klobuchar. “As we work to ban deceptive deepfakes of candidates, we also need disclaimers to improve transparency in our elections so that whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, voters will know if the political ads they see are made using this technology.”

  ads, ai, elections, political