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Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump recites the pledge of allegiance with his wife Melania, back in 2016.
‘I pledge allegiance against AI’
The Washington Post’s technology columnist, Geoffrey Fowler, recently asked 2024 US presidential candidates to take an "AI Pledge" promising to:
- Label any communication made with generative AI tools.
- Not use AI to misrepresent what a competitor has done or said.
- Not use AI to misrepresent what you have done or said.
- Not use AI to confuse people about how to vote.”
AI-generated media can be innocuous: Take that image of Pope Francis looking fresh in a white puffer coat, which went viral earlier this year. But it could also be dangerous — experts have warned for years that deepfakes and other synthetic media could cause mass chaos or disrupt elections if wielded maliciously and believed by enough people. It could, in other words, supercharge an already-pervasive disinformation problem.
We’ve not reached that point yet, but AI has already crept into domestic politicking this year. In April, the Republican National Committee ran an AI-generated ad depicting a dystopian second presidential term for Joe Biden. In July, Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis used an artificially generated Donald Trump voice in an attack ad against his opponent.
There’s been some backlash: Google recently mandated that political ads provide written disclosure if AI is used, and a group of US senators would like to sign a similar mandate into law. But until then, perhaps a pledge like Fowler’s could offer some baseline assurance that cutting-edge technology won’t be used by America’s most powerful people for anti-democratic means. We already have enough people doubting free and fair elections without the influence of AI.
No candidates have taken Fowler’s pledge, but it got one key endorsement from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “Maybe most candidates will make that pledge,” Schumer said. “But the ones that won’t will drive us to a lower common denominator … If we don’t have government-imposed guardrails, the lowest common denominator will prevail.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence announces he is dropping out of the race for president of the United States at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Saturday.
Pence's withdrawal leaves Trump with one less obstacle
On Saturday, former US Vice President Mike Pence dropped out of the presidential race for the GOP nomination, saying that "this is not my time.”
After six months of campaigning, Pence had failed to galvanize a large enough base of support and donations. Bowing out erased the funding needs but it also may have spared Pence the embarrassment of potentially failing to qualify for the third Republican primary debate on Nov. 8. As of Friday, four candidates had qualified: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Pence did not endorse any of his former rivals, but in what was seen as a dig at former President Donald Trump, he said “I urge all my fellow Republicans here, give our country a Republican standard-bearer that will, as Lincoln said, appeal to the better angels of our nature, and not only lead us to victory but lead our nation with civility."
Trump has since asked for Pence’s endorsement, noting that “I made him vice president.” But he also noted that “people in politics are very disloyal” – a swipe at Pence’s refusal in 2020 to disallow electoral votes that had elected Joe Biden.
The other thing Trump has his eye on is his former Veep’s possible testimony at his federal trial on charges he tried to steal the 2020 election from Biden during the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.
While polls show that Trump remains far ahead of the competition for the GOP nomination, his legal woes appear to be his greatest obstacle: Trump is facing four legal proceedings, including one in Georgia on charges of “criminal conspiracy.” If reelected, he might be able to pardon himself of some charges, but not of state-level charges.