By Joe Mueller| Kiowa Free Press
Weiser’s two-page public advisory refers to House Bill 24-1147, which took effect July 1. It created new regulations and penalties for using artificial intelligence and deepfake-generated content in communications about candidates for elected office. The law requires anyone using AI to create election communications featuring images, videos or audio of candidates to include a disclaimer explaining the content isn’t real.
Candidates who have their appearance, actions or speech depicted in a deepfake can pursue legal prohibition of the distribution, dissemination, publication, broadcast, transmission or other display of the communication. The bill provides for compensatory and punitive damages and the possibility of criminal charges.
“Much false speech is constitutionally protected,” David Greene, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in an interview. “I don’t read this law as creating a category of speech that’s unprotected. But it’s a content-based law and will have to pass strict scrutiny because it is a restriction on otherwise protected speech.”