Blakeman is releasing generative AI campaign videos,…
Gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman and other politicians are utilizing AI-generated campaign ads to depict opponents in satirical or negative scenarios
- Incident date
- Jul 2025
- Target
- Kathy Hochul, Zohran Mamdani, Andrew M. Cuomo
In the lead-up to the 2025 election cycle, several political campaigns have increasingly relied on generative AI to produce campaign advertisements. Candidates, including Republican Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman and mayoral candidate Andrew M. Cuomo, have utilized AI-generated imagery and audio to portray opponents in various fictionalized scenarios, ranging from "South Park" characters to basketball players. While these campaigns argue that the content serves as protected satire or humor, experts warn that the proliferation of such media risks normalizing political deception and saturating social media with low-quality "AI slop."
What happened
Between January 1 and July 17, 2025, Newsday identified at least 17 videos from the Blakeman campaign containing AI-generated content. These advertisements featured synthetic portrayals of Democratic incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. In one instance, an AI-generated ad depicted a made-up drug dealer, an undocumented immigrant, and an energy CEO voicing support for Hochul, while another featured a fake version of the Governor claiming her administration funded "free healthcare for sex workers."
Similarly, Andrew M. Cuomo’s 2025 mayoral campaign experimented with AI to depict himself as a subway conductor and trader, and faced criticism for an ad featuring an AI-generated version of Mamdani, which was later deleted. Although New York state law requires disclosures for "materially deceptive media" in political communications, enforcement remains inconsistent. Many of the identified videos lacked these mandatory disclosures, including a June 13 video depicting Blakeman and Hochul at a Knicks game. Political science experts note that while these ads are not necessarily intended to fool the electorate, they serve to provoke emotional reactions and scale negative campaigning efforts. Critics argue that regardless of intent, the technology allows politicians to push boundaries on truth-distorting content, potentially undermining the factual basis of democratic discourse.