‘Steam engine’ or cautionary tale? Experts weigh in on AI role in California elections

Will artificial intelligence be the doom of political integrity? Or will it help promote election law compliance in California?

Depends on who you ask, according to a panel of tech and campaign finance experts who spoke today at the state Fair Political Practices Commission’s 50th anniversary event in Sacramento.

The independent nonpartisan commission — California’s campaign finance watchdog agency — was created by the Political Reform Act in 1974 to ensure transparency in state and local politics after the Watergate scandal. The agency of about 100 employees regulates lobbying, conflict of interest, campaign finance and ethics violations. 

The event featured former and current commissioners, campaign finance attorneys and state legislators, including former commission Chairperson Ann Ravel, Political Reform Act co-author Bob Stern and state Sen. Steve Glazer, an Orinda Democrat. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Gov. Jerry Brown both appeared on the screen in pre-recorded footage.

Panelists reviewed the origin of the Political Reform Act, established by a voter-approved ballot measure and endorsed by Brown. They also combed through challenges facing the commission, with some recounting funding restraints and enforcement backlogs. 

One of the panels — moderated by commission Chairperson Adam Silver — discussed the role of AI in elections. While the proliferation of deep fakes concerns him, the technology could help bolster the agency’s enforcement efforts on campaign finance violations and educate officials on compliance, Silver said.

Scott Morris, a senior strategic client executive at Microsoft, deemed the technology “the steam engine of the fourth industrial revolution.” 

Assembly Elections Committee Chairperson Gail Pellerin, a Santa Cruz Democrat and former local elections official for nearly three decades, said AI could also help answer voter questions, monitor cybersecurity threats, optimize voting locations and even redraw districts.

But Drew Liebert, initiative director at the nonprofit California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, warned of the abuse of AI in elections.

“We have to be very careful as we study these enormous learning machines out there scooping up … all of the information on the internet,” he said. “I think we have to approach AI with a great deal of caution.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Rob Bonta sent a letter today to top social media and AI companies, reminding executives at Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, X and others that California laws ban certain types of “voter intimidation, deception, and dissuasion,” and that the laws may apply to information on social media sites and AI-generated content.

Bonta also said companies have either “eased or eliminated” their content-moderation policies, despite a “dramatic increase” of misinformation on social media during the 2020 general election.