UAlbany researcher calls for transparency and digital literacy as AI spreads in politics (File Photo)
Albany, NY (WRGB) —Artificial intelligence is becoming a powerful tool in political campaigns, but a new study suggests voters’ trust in AI-assisted messaging can hinge less on the technology itself and more on which party they think is using it.
Researcher Seulki Lee-Geiller of the University at Albany’s Center for Technology in Government examined how perceptions of election integrity shift when voters believe AI is being used by their preferred political party versus the opposing party. The study, “AI as a partisan cue: the relational dynamics of AI-assisted campaign messaging in election integrity perceptions,” was published Sept. 24 in the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.
Lee-Geiller’s online survey experiment included 3,055 U.S. participants in June and July 2024, ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Participants were randomly assigned to four groups and shown a hypothetical campaign letter from a presidential candidate. The letter’s content stayed the same for everyone, but participants received different information about how it was created: one group saw no mention of AI, another was told AI helped draft it, and two other groups were told AI was used either by their preferred political party or by the opposing party.
After reading the letter, participants evaluated election integrity measures including fairness, authenticity, freedom from fraud and whether voters’ interests were represented.
In the release, Lee-Geiller said,
What we found is that simply knowing AI was used in a campaign message didn’t significantly change how people viewed its fairness or authenticity. But participants were more likely to believe AI was being used to target <a href="https://myappsplus.com/google-messages-update-rolling-out-new-app-icon-with-gradient-design/” title=”Google Messages update rolling out new app icon with gradient design”>messages to specific audiences. The bigger differences emerged when political affiliation was introduced.
When participants believed their preferred party used AI, they gave more favorable assessments of election integrity. When they believed the opposing party used AI, they were more skeptical about fairness and authenticity.
According to the release, on a five-point scale, the average authenticity rating was 3.71 when AI use was attributed to a participant’s preferred party, compared with 3.37 when it was attributed to an opposing party.
The findings point to the role partisan identity can play in shaping reactions to AI-assisted political communication, even when the message itself does not change.
As AI becomes more common in political communication, we need to think beyond what the technology can do and consider how people understand and respond to it. Transparency, consistent standards and digital literacy can help people make more informed judgments about AI-assisted messages, regardless of who is using the technology.
The study is described as exploratory and focused on short-term reactions to hypothetical campaign materials, rather than real-world election conditions. Lee-Geiller said additional research could look at how perceptions evolve with repeated exposure to AI-assisted messaging during actual campaigns.
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