Tom Newhouse, vice president of Convergence Media, discusses the potential impact of artificial intelligence on elections after an RNC AI ad garnered attention. A House Democrat proposed legislation this week that would require political campaign ads to make it clear to viewers when generative artificial intelligence is used to produce video or images in those ads, an idea that is a response to an AI-generated ad against President Biden that was released last week. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said in a statement introducing her bill that AI has become a factor in the upcoming campaign and needs to be regulated so people can understand what they hear and see on television. "The upcoming 2024 election cycle will be the first time in U.S. history where AI generated content will be used in political ads by campaigns, parties, and Super PACs," she said. "Unfortunately, our current laws have not kept pace with the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies."

It has become common fare in United States political campaigns: advertisements that make sweeping claims of dystopia if the opposing candidate wins. Manipulated, underexposed images and cherry-picked headlines combine to build a crescendo of doom. But in the wake of Tuesday's announcement that Democratic President Joe Biden will run for reelection, an official Republican Party video has stood out for one specific reason: It was generated completely using artificial intelligence (AI) images. The Republican National Committee's embrace of the "transformative technology of our time" is not surprising given the rapid advancement and availability of AI products, said Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. The Republican Party's use of AI is an early sign of what is likely to come, he told Al Jazeera.

But 2021 will likely be a big year for A.I., and with a new White House administration soon in place, there may be a clearer set of national A.I. policies that will trickle down to the business world. On New Year's Day, the U.S. Senate voted to overturn President Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act and authorize $741 billion for defense spending, including the creation of a number of A.I.-related polices. Among the reasons Trump opposed the defense bill was the absence of a provision to repeal Section 230, which gives legal protections to Internet companies that host user-generated content. Although the defense bill was mostly geared toward military spending, it did contain a number of non-defense related A.I. initiatives, as Stanford University's Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence group outlined. For instance, the bill would create a "National AI Initiative" that would coordinate A.I. research and development between "civilian agencies," the Defense Department, and intelligence agencies.