Useless Federal Election Commission Punts On Deepfakes

[Above, a classic deepfake of Trump and Jared Kushner on "Better Call Saul." -- eds.]

An announcement by the U.S. Federal Election Commission on Thursday that it will not take action to regulate artificial intelligence-generated "deepfakes" in political ads before the November elections amounted to "a shameful abrogation of its responsibilities," said a leading critic of the technology.

A year after consumer advocate Public Citizen filed a petition with the FEC to demand rulemaking that would prohibit a political candidate or advocacy group from misrepresenting political opponents using deliberately deceptive deepfakes—fake images generated with AI—FEC Chair Sean Cooksey told Axios the commission will not propose any new rules this year.

Cooksey, a Republican, said he plans to close the pending petition on Thursday without taking any action, telling Axios that rulemaking to limit or prohibit AI in campaign ads would "overstep the commission's limited legal authority to regulate political advertisements."

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