Over the last month, some Spanish-speaking New Yorkers got a recorded phone call from Mayor Eric Adams speaking their native language. “Hola, soy el alcalde Eric Adams,” the mayor says in a monotone but flawless accent, before launching into a pitch for jobs with the city government. The truth is Adams isn’t multilingual, but he is a pioneer in the AI politics race.
In October, the mayor’s office said he’s been using AI to blast his constituents with millions of robocalls in languages he doesn’t speak, including Yiddish, Spanish, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, and Cantonese.
The US has an election cycle coming up next year and the new misinformation tools are sharper and way more convincing than ever. On behalf of the rest of the world, good luck, we’ll be sitting here with our popcorn.
Seconded. Just wait for the first story of “I had a conversation with [politician name] on the phone yesterday. They knew everything about me, and we talked about all these things I’m interested in.” or “[Politician name] called me yesterday and said these horrible things about my relatives and mentioned them all by name. I’m never voting for them again!” Welcome to the wild west, yet again.