2026 May Be the First Election Where Artificially-Generated Content Is Inescapable. Hany Farid Speaks Out

The video released by Democratic congressional hopeful Blake Gendebien last month looked, at first blush, eerily real: it depicted his potential rival, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, dancing, posing with President Donald Trump, and making a “shhhh” gesture with her index figure at her lips.

 

Except it wasn’t actually Stefanik doing any of those things. It was a version of Stefanik generated by artificial intelligence. A fine-print disclaimer at the end of the 45-second clip was the only explicit confirmation of how it was created...

 

“It does feel like something is bubbling up,” said Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley who studies A.I. content in politics. The increase, he said, can be explained by the fact that “the tech is just getting really, really good” and also by sheer political calculation.

 

“Once one side starts doing this, the other side is going to do it,” he said. “You’d be foolish to unilaterally disarm in this kind of politics...”