Good evening. Tonight we’re looking at how A.I. is changing the political advertising landscape.

The real James Talarico. Republicans recently released a video with an A.I.-generated version of him reading his old tweets. Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

The age of eerie A.I. political ads is here

Weird voice-overs. Fake images of politicians. Scenes that seem real until you look closely.

The A.I. era of campaign advertising seems to be upon us — and it’s a pretty fast-moving and complex situation.

Fortunately, my colleague Tiffany Hsu, a technology reporter who writes about disinformation, has joined us today to help explain how A.I.-generated ads are already shaping the political landscape, and where this phenomenon may be going next.

Here’s our conversation, edited and condensed:

Tiffany, thank you for joining. I want to start by asking you about an A.I.-generated video from the Senate Republican campaign arm that draws on old tweets to put words in the mouth of a fake image of James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas.

My first thought was, can they really do that? Are there any guardrails right now on how public figures can be represented in A.I.-generated content?

They can, and they already have! In October, the same group put out an attack ad with a deepfake of Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader from New York. There was another A.I.-generated attack ad around the same time targeting Zohran Mamdani, now the New York mayor, during his campaign.

Protections do exist, in theory: As of December, 26 states have laws regulating political deepfakes, most of them requiring some sort of disclosure about the use of artificial intelligence or barring deepfake distribution right before an election.

Do these laws have teeth? Debatable. The Federal Communications Commission has done some work on this front, banning A.I.-generated voices in robocalls (like the one in 2024 that impersonated President Joe Biden) and has considered rules about political deepfakes in television and radio ads.

Remind us, what is a deepfake?

There’s a more detailed technical explanation, but when we talk about a deepfake, we usually mean a deceptive image or video of a real person.

How widespread do you expect A.I.-generated advertising to be in the midterm elections this year?

I wouldn’t be surprised to see it more frequently. The Trump administration has been pretty brazen about communicating via A.I.-generated memes and digitally altered content, and if the president sets the political tone, then candidates could be less cautious about tapping the technology.

Their calculus might be that the public is becoming increasingly desensitized to A.I.’s reality distortion effect. They’re already being bombarded with fake influencers, fake celebrities, fake war reporting. What’s another fake politician?

Is it mostly Republicans who have used this tactic so far, or are you seeing some Democrats dip into it too?

This is an equal-opportunity technology. Jesse Jackson Jr., who is trying to reclaim his former seat representing Illinois in Congress, released an ad this month with former Representative Bobby Rush of Illinois delivering an endorsement in an A.I.-enhanced voice (his vocal cords were weakened by cancer).

A Democrat in upstate New York who is running to replace Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican, ran an ad over the summer that used A.I.-generated video of Stefanik to mock her.

The National Democratic Training Committee has discouraged candidates from using deepfakes of their opponents.

Are there any particularly striking examples of A.I. in ads that have floated under the radar?

The local elections are going to be interesting to watch.

There was one ad last fall that came out of a school board race in the Columbus, Ohio, area. Three male candidates, all Republican-endorsed, put out A.I.-generated clips of their three female, Democratic-backed opponents saying outrageous things (the men lost.).

The discussion around that move — was it deceptive and dangerous or just lighthearted fun? — really encapsulated the broader debate around political deepfakes.

Voters are going to get confused. Are politicians or campaigns doing anything to guard against A.I.-fueled misimpressions? Do experts have thoughts on what they should be doing?

There’s a quote attributed to Jonathan Swift, the 18th-century writer of “Gulliver’s Travels,” that I think about often these days: “Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.”

Campaigns are on the back foot when a convincing deepfake starts circulating, because voters often form first impressions quickly and don’t double back for a fact check.

That said, politicians are doing what they can. Some are recording every event they attend in an attempt to maintain an accurate record. Some are tapping consultants from the tech world.

A few days ago, YouTube announced a pilot program to help political candidates and others detect videos that use their A.I.-generated likenesses. Both Microsoft and YouTube are involved in an effort to develop technical standards to help identify where a piece of content originated and whether it is authentic.

Our colleague Kevin Roose told me a few weeks ago that the politics of A.I. don’t break down neatly along partisan lines. Does the same go for conversations about regulating A.I. in campaign advertising, or is the divide clearer?

Support for legislation about election deepfakes actually tends to be bipartisan!

Our readers are savvy and can certainly spot sloppy A.I. efforts. But the technology is only going to improve, right?

Oh yeah. The technology is improving faster than detection services or legislation can keep up. Every once in a while, my teammate Stuart Thompson whips up a quiz to test whether readers can tell A.I.-generated content apart from reality. I can say from personal experience that it’s getting harder to score respectably, even as someone who constantly has A.I. on the brain!

What should voters look for to make sure that what they’re watching is real?

A.I. often produces images that feel unnaturally smooth and centered. Sometimes, close-ups of A.I. avatars’ eyes will show different reflections or, in a video, weird blinking patterns. The hairline is occasionally funky, and the background might not obey the laws of nature (we found one recent video of a purported explosion at a high-rise in Bahrain that had cars on the road blending into one another).

Of course, clever prompting can sidestep many of these tells.

Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, left, and Representative Robin Kelly of Illinois. Joshua Lott for The New York Times

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“It’s very hard to watch.”

That’s Willie Preston, a Democratic state senator in Illinois who is the chairman of his chamber’s Black caucus.

He was referring to the way that two Black female candidates, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Representative Robin Kelly, may split primary voters in Tuesday’s Democratic primary race for Senate in Illinois, which could help Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi win. Anger is growing at well-funded efforts to widen the divide.

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ONE NUMBER

74 percent

That’s the share of voters who oppose sending U.S. ground troops into Iran, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. Ruth Igielnik, The Times’s polling editor, explains.

President Trump has largely had the backing of his party in his attacks on Iran, but a majority of Republicans say they are opposed to sending in ground troops. Just 37 percent of Republicans were in favor.

In general, few Americans think Trump has provided a clear explanation for the military action taken against Iran. Just 35 percent of voters said his administration had done so, while 62 percent said it had not.

The war is increasingly having other consequences for the president at home. Three-quarters of Americans — including 52 percent of Republicans — are concerned that the war in Iran will lead to higher oil and gas prices.

President Trump in Kentucky this week. Doug Mills/The New York Times

TAKE OUR QUIZ

This question comes from a recent article in The Times. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.)

President Trump is still withholding his endorsement in the closely watched Republican primary for Senate in Texas. But at a rally in Kentucky this week, he endorsed a provocative internet personality who is not currently running for office. Who was it?

Bobby Pulido Gabriel V. Cárdenas for The New York Times

ONE LAST THING

The quinceañera campaign

Bobby Pulido is a moderate Democrat, a Latin Grammy Award-winning Tejano singer and a congressional candidate in what may be a competitive Texas district. He is also highly in demand at quinceañeras, coming-of-age celebrations for girls in many Latino cultures.

“My opponent says I ‘only belong at Quinceañeras.’ Don’t threaten me with a good time!” he wrote on social media this week, turning an attack line into an event series as he linked to a form through which families could invite him to their gatherings.

He has received more than 2,000 invitations from across the state, the country and all 11 counties in the district where he’s running, his campaign told me.

Pulido will be singing — maybe not for everyone who asked, but at as many events as he can manage, his campaign said, with a focus on the district. The appearances start Saturday, with stops at events in Edinburg and Elsa, Texas.

This week, I wrote about Democrats who want to see their candidates lead with culture. This will be an interesting and colorful test of that tactic.

MORE POLITICS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

Taylor Robinson and Ama Sarpomaa contributed reporting.

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