He also expects campaigns to use AI to update voter databases in real time, perform trend analyzes and send tailored communications to different tranches of voters. That can appeal to undecided independents on the issues that may matter most to them or appeal to the fundraising of more powerful supporters who play on their greatest fear if their candidate loses. “If you can automate all of that, then these previously time-intensive, labor-intensive and therefore money-intensive campaign functions are much easier to do and much cheaper to accomplish,” Strother said.
Huynh also sees AI leveling the playing field between good and bad campaigns. His agency has already played with AI to create a video that portrays a client as a superhero. This is the kind of project that needs to hire a studio with green screens, block out hours of the client’s time and hire some computer animators and editors to put it all together – but, with AI, created “for fun” by the left. everyone’s time.
The proliferation of high-end video editing software and improved cameras means that any candidate for town dogcatcher with an artsy nephew can put together a catchy campaign ad, even if they don’t it can afford to run it anywhere other than their own YouTube page. AI will only supercharge that trend, Huynh said.
“You can see some examples of content and video graphics images that will be made possible by AI generative for better campaigns to do that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise,” he said.
As a result, for most voters, the rise of AI may not mean being bombarded with hard-to-spot political lies let alone bombarded with political content in general. The history of the impact of technology at work suggests that campaigns can do more with less, and thus do more of the things in elections that flood and anger voters: more online ads, polls , texts, emails, fundraising appeals, emotional manipulations and more are thrown on top of the ever-increasing number of robocalls that incessantly bombard our cellphones.
