\u201cCampaigns are full of lies, OK, \u201d Rinaldi told the Guardian in an interview. \u201cWhat I\u2019m saying is that I\u2019m not doing anything different than anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n
While this kind of enforcement is rare, and the laws used to level charges against Rinaldi predate and do not require the use of AI, the alleged deception at the heart of the case is emblematic of a fraught national debate about regulating AI in political communications.<\/p>\n
Rinaldi disputes he violated any laws and worries about the free speech implications of being arrested for online activity. \u201cIt is very important for the police to not be able to arrest you on complaints for social media posts that are created by AI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
AI-generated ads are everywhere this election season. They mostly hype up candidates, or mock their opponents \u2013 often paid for by outside groups unaffiliated with the candidates. But their widespread use \u2013 and the occasional bad actor \u2013 are fueling concerns that deceptive political content could manipulate voters and amplify misinformation ahead of the November midterms.<\/p>\n
In congressional primary races across the country, attention-grabbing AI-generated ads are already sparking controversy. One video depicted James Talarico, a Texas Democratic Senate candidate, dressed as Maria from the Sound of Music and singing a version of My Favorite Things<\/a> about trans kids. Another suggested Thomas Massie, a conservative Kentucky congressman, was \u201cin a throuple\u201d<\/a> with progressive \u201cSquad members\u201d: showing the lawmakers holding hands as they checked into a hotel room. Spencer Pratt, a Los Angeles mayoral candidate, took on the role of Batman and portrayed his opponent Karen Bass, as the Joker in a bizarre digital spectacle that garnered millions of views and helped propel him from fringe outsider to serious contender.<\/p>\n Post by Rinaldi\u2019s Instagram, @jdrfornyc, on 24 October 2025 at 8.32am ET. Photograph: The Queens district attorney\u2019s office<\/p>\n \u201cMost of these ads aren\u2019t trying to convince people,\u201d said Bruce Schneier, a fellow and lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School. \u201cThey\u2019re about social signaling. What\u2019s important is: my team gets to dunk on your team.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the president is a fan. Donald Trump has leaned heavily into AI \u201cslopaganda<\/a>\u201d \u2013 portraying himself as a king gracing the cover of Time magazine, a pope and a light-saber wielding Jedi. He also shared a racist video<\/a> depicting former president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as apes, fueling intense backlash. Trump later removed the post. During the 2024 presidential election, both he and Elon Musk shared AI-generated images of Kamala Harris at communist rallies. Just last week, Trump posted<\/a> an AI video of himself posing as a doctor, with a stethoscope around his neck\u2013claiming to have cured some of his most famous critics of \u201cTrump derangement syndrome\u201d.<\/p>\n Some uses of AI have been more deceptive. In the 2023 presidential primary, Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, posted<\/a> what looked like an AI-generated image of Trump hugging Dr Anthony Fauci \u2013 who had become a target of Republicans\u2019 anger over his pandemic response strategy. In January 2024, a political consultant sent AI-generated robocalls<\/a> mimicking Joe Biden to thousands of voters two days before the state\u2019s presidential primary; the fake Biden suggested people vote in the November election instead, and that their ballot wouldn\u2019t make a difference in January.<\/p>\n Experts warn that sophisticated new AI tools have made it far easier to manufacture and amplify misinformation at a mass scale. The public shares those concerns, too. A March 2026 poll from PBS News, NPR and Maris<\/a> found that 85% of Americans say it is likely that AI-generated political content will spread misinformation about November\u2019s elections. The scale of distrust held up across Democrats, Republicans and independents.<\/p>\n The Brennan Center for Justice is pushing the Federal Election Commission to act decisively on \u201cdeliberately deceptive AI-produced content\u201d for fear that deepfakes impersonating candidates \u201care likely to become an increasingly effective tool for defrauding donors\u201d. US law bans federal candidates and their agents from fraudulently misrepresenting themselves to be \u201cspeaking or writing or otherwise acting<\/a>\u201d on behalf of another candidate or political party \u201con a matter which is damaging\u201d to the one being misrepresented. But that doesn\u2019t always translate into enforcement.<\/p>\n While there\u2019s generally a high bar to protect political speech, more than 30 states<\/a> have enacted laws regulating the use of deepfakes in political messaging. Most are focused on disclosures, such as stating the inclusion of deepfakes and AI, or highlighting who paid for the ad. Minnesota<\/a> and Texas<\/a> ban the use of deepfakes for a certain number of days leading up to an election. California<\/a> and Hawaii\u2019s<\/a> deepfake bans were struck down by federal courts for being overly broad and infringing on the first amendment.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the existing regulatory framework we have around political communication is quite muddled and there\u2019s a long history of that muddle leading to confusion and very poor and non-rigorous enforcement of the rules,\u201d said Nathan Sanders, a data scientist at Harvard.<\/p>\n Old problem, new challenges<\/p>\n In his bid for city council, Rinaldi, according to the prosecutor\u2019s complaint, prompted AI to dress up his opponent in a \u201cHot Girls for Zohran\u201d T-shirt. He also posted images and videos falsely stating he had the backing of many local groups, including a police precinct, students at an elementary school and a Jewish interest group. Made-up children \u2013 some with their fists raised \u2013 chanted outside of a building labeled PS 101 Queens: \u201cMake it real. Make it Rinaldi. Let our voices shine.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the filing, Heather Bennett-Idels, founder of the Queens Jewish Alliance, confronted Rinaldi after he shared an image promoting the group\u2019s endorsement of him. The group had, in fact, endorsed his opponent. \u201cIt\u2019s dishonest to have a fake thing up,\u201d she told him.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to TechScape<\/p>\n A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s politics,\u201d Rinaldi responded.<\/p>\n Experts agree with the idea that candidates lying is as old as politics itself. \u201cThe things we\u2019re afraid of with AI are things that have been part of politics since the beginning of politics,\u201d said Peter Loge, director of George Washington University\u2019s project on ethics in political communication. In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin published<\/a> a fake supplement to a Boston newspaper with false news about the British \u2013 \u201ccompelling nonsense for political goals \u2013 nothing to do with AI\u201d, Loge says. Still, the new technology poses unique challenges. \u201cAI makes it easier to lie at scale more than ever before. But the problem isn\u2019t the tech, it\u2019s the lie,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n Politicians who want to mislead voters already have many ways to do so without AI: they can film an actor in a wig, or turn to photoshop or computer-generated imagery (CGI).<\/p>\n Screenshot of an AI-generated video posted on Rinaldi\u2019s Facebook. Illustration: The Queens district attorney\u2019s office<\/p>\n Many political consultants recognize the risks of bad actors using AI but argue the tools can have a democratizing effect. Advertising and media are traditionally the most expensive part of a political campaign. Now, access to free or low-cost AI tools means candidates with less money can create content that is on par with opponents who have much larger budgets, they say.<\/p>\n \u201cAI is a tool for producing truthful content. It can also be a tool for producing not truthful content,\u201d said Julie Sweet, who leads the American Association of Political Consultants\u2019 (AAPC) work on AI and modern political communication.<\/p>\n The AAPC produced a \u201cmeaningful disclosure framework<\/a>\u201d that advises members not to publish content in which synthetic audio or video that\u2019s realistic enough to be mistaken for a genuine recording, generates words the opponent never said, or depicts them at a meeting or location they never attended. For cases in which AI re-creates a specific documented public event from news reports, or enhances an opponent\u2019s photo to look unflattering, it\u2019s worth disclosing, they say. For more innocuous uses of AI, such as translating a candidate\u2019s English speech into Spanish, or a voice clone reading the candidate\u2019s own approved script, the group says that disclosure may not be necessary.<\/p>\n Although members\u2019 views on regulation vary<\/a>, Sweet says state-mandated disclaimers \u2013 particularly ones that require the words \u201cfake\u201d or \u201cmanipulated\u201d for AI use in political communications, can reduce trust<\/a> with the audience, even in cases that don\u2019t have anything to do with deception.<\/p>\n The group instead advises the use of terms such as \u201cdramatization\u201d, \u201csimulation\u201d, \u201cre-enactment\u201d, \u201csynthetic voice\u201d, \u201ctranslated\u201d and \u201cimage enhanced or altered\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782850452_383_500.jpg\")
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