Democrat James Talarico is pushing back on deepfake AI advertising in the Texas U.S. Senate race.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton released an AI ad Tuesday, Sept. 8, entitled "King James." The ad attacked Talarico's religious faith and showed AI-generated images of Talarico reading from a "King James Talarico" bible with references to his comments on gender and God being nonbinary.
Talarico took to X Wednesday, Sept. 16, to criticize the ads.
"Have y’all seen these AI deepfakes they’re making of me? They don’t have any real attacks, so they’re firing up their data centers and making up fake ones," Talarico wrote in the post. "I don’t need to use deepfakes. The truth about Ken Paxton is bad enough."
But Monday's post was hardly the first
time Talarico has blasted Paxton's AI advertising. In an interview with CBS News, Talarico accused Paxton of "lying to the people of Texas" in the AI ad, which he claimed puts "words in my mouth."
"When you look at this ad, they are using AI in order to mislead the people of this state, and that is completely consistent with a liar like Ken Paxton," Talarico said in the interview. "I am confident that Democrats, independents and Republicans are going to reject Ken Paxton because we don't want a criminal representing us in the halls of power in Washington."
Talarico also noted that every ad his team makes is "made by human beings" and there no plans to use AI as part of his political advertising.
Adam Powell covers government and politics for the El Paso Times and can be reached via email at apowell@elpasotimes.com.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Talarico blasts Paxton AI ad in Texas US Senate race fight
