New Hampshire House passes AI election rules after Biden deepfake

The New Hampshire state House advanced a bill Thursday that would require political ads that use deceptive artificial intelligence (AI) disclose use of the technology, adding to growing momentum in states to add AI regulations for election protection. 

The bill passed without debate in the state House and will advance to the state Senate.

The bill advanced after New Hampshire voters received robocalls in January, ahead of the state’s primary elections, that included an AI-generated voice depicting President Biden. Steve Kramer, a veteran Democratic operative, admitted to being behind the fake robocalls and said he did so to draw attention to the dangers of AI in politics, NBC News reported in February.

New Hampshire’s attorney general’s office has said the calls violated the state’s voter suppression law.

The new bill would require disclosure when deceptive AI is used in political advertising within 90 days of an election, and the disclosures would be used to explain that the ad’s image, video, or audio has been “manipulated or generated” by AI and “depicts speech of conduct that did not occur.”

The bill includes exemptions for satire and parody.

The new measure is part of a growing trend of states taking on bills aimed at adding AI regulations for election-related content. An analysis released by Voting Rights Lab earlier this week tracked more than 100 bills in 39 state legislatures that contain provisions intended to regulate the potential for Ai to produce election disinformation.  

The digitally-altered robocall depicting Biden in New Hampshire reignited calls from advocates for the federal government to add guardrails to protect against AI election disinformation from spreading.  

The Federal Election Commission (FEC), under pressure led by the advocacy group Public Citizen, voted unanimously in August to open a public comment period to update a rule about fraudulently misrepresenting candidates to make it clear that the rule applies to deceptive AI in campaigns.  

The FEC has not announced any further action on the rule.