Democratic operative Steven Kramer also faces 26 criminal charges, across 4 counties in New Hampshire
The political consultant that used deepfake generative artificial intelligence to mimic President Joe Biden’s voice and send robocall messages two days before the New Hampshire presidential primary now faces more than two dozen criminal charges and a $6 million fine.
Steven Kramer, a longtime Democratic political operative who was working with Biden’s primary challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips, has admitted to being behind a robocall message sent to voters in New Hampshire. The robocall, in an AI-generated message that sounded like Biden’s voice, falsely insinuated that voting in the New Hampshire presidential primary would mean voters could not vote in November.
Kramer is now charged with 13 felony counts of voter suppression and 13 misdemeanor counts of impersonation of a candidate, across four counties, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General. The criminal charges against Kramer — filed in Belknap, Grafton, Merrimack and Rockingham counties — are each tied to a specific voter and allege that he “knowingly attempted to prevent or deter” each voter from voting “based on fraudulent, deceptive, misleading or spurious grounds or information.”
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said regulators are committed to helping states go after perpetrators. In a statement, she called the robocalls “unnerving.”
“Because when a caller sounds like a politician you know, a celebrity you like, or a family member who is familiar, any one of us could be tricked into believing something that is not true with calls using AI technology,” she said in a statement to media. “It is exactly how the bad actors behind these junk calls with manipulated voices want you to react.”
She also said that the FCC actions were “only a start,” because “AI technologies that make it cheap and easy to flood our networks with fake stuff are being used in so many ways here and abroad.”
This post is an excerpt from a longer article I wrote for the Deseret News. You can find it here.
