The case for more AI in politics

The future of artificial intelligence in politics is already here. You just haven’t noticed it.

That’s according to digital strategist Eric Wilson, managing partner at Startup Caucus, an incubator for Republican campaign tech.

Wilson, who served as digital director for Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign, has been using AI tools one way or another for years, starting with machine learning algorithms for social media and email spam filters, and is now watching the current wave of generative AI shape up as a potential disruptive force in this election cycle.

Currently a senior vice president for strategy at the public affairs firm Bullpen Strategy Group, Wilson says the handful of AI-enhanced ads that have run in the opening stages of the 2024 race are just the tip of the iceberg. There’s already a lot of AI being deployed beneath the surface of politics, in less dramatic ways.

But political operatives like Wilson also face a hurdle: Many of the most popular and powerful new generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s Llama, impose restrictions on certain types of political content.

Though AI companies’ policies are still evolving, and the internal workings of their models are opaque, their applications regularly decline to engage with requests that seem overtly political. Asked Tuesday morning to generate a case for voting for Donald Trump over Joe Biden, the Llama-2-70b model responded, “[I]t goes against my programming rules to promote harmful, unethical, racist, sexist, toxic, dangerous, or illegal content.” Asked to write a fundraising email for Biden, it refused to “assist with drafting fundraising emails or any other form of political campaigning.”

In an interview, Wilson vented his frustration with the limits imposed by AI platforms on campaign applications — and also argued that Microsoft’s late-July decision to ban political ads from its in-house advertising platform bodes poorly for campaigns’ ability to access large tech firms’ offerings in general.

Wilson would like to see tech platforms loosen their restrictive approach to political use, at least when it comes to properly registered campaigns and committees.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

We’ve seen a lot of warnings about AI’s potential effect on politics. You’re not worried about opening the floodgates?

The moral panic around AI, especially in politics, is way overblown. The way it’s going to be integrated into this cycle is very mundane, which is like helping write press releases and social media copy, and just speeding up the process as we’re seeing it in any other industry.

The real applications are fundamentally boring and don’t live up to the panic around “Robots are going to take our democracy.”

How are you actually using it?

It’s definitely top of mind for me in all the projects that I’m working on. I use it personally to help with drafting blog posts, editing transcripts for my podcast, generating ideas for social media copy, and to generate the images I use for websites.

On a professional level, we’re investing in companies from Startup Caucus that have used AI for a while, but we’re also starting to look at what the possibilities are with large language models. We’re building products for clients that incorporate the latest in artificial intelligence to help them transcribe videos, and analyze videos. It’s a sea change.

What’s the biggest obstacle to injecting AI into the political process?

The biggest roadblock is corporate policies around politics. It’s always nerve-racking building software on dependencies that you might not be allowed to use in the future. Microsoft, for example, banned all political ads on their advertising network last week. You have OpenAI saying it can’t be used for these political use cases.

Are there alternatives to the big corporate platforms? Are people using open-source models?

Yeah, if you’re serious about building for the political space, you start with one of the open large language models, and then the important part is training it on your data sets.

How else are campaigns getting around these roadblocks?

You say, “Draft a marketing email about this topic” and then you go in and change it to have a fundraising call to action. Current AI models are set off by certain political terms or pitching candidates.

That sounds like a pain.

There are also purpose-built tools on the right and the left for writing emails on behalf of campaigns.

Democrats have invested in a company called Quiller that helps write fundraising emails and they’ve got a number of candidates doing that. There’s another platform called Localist that’s nonpartisan, that helps campaigns with copywriting.

Elon Musk has marketed his new xAI as a politically incorrect alternative to existing chatbots. Does it have the potential to become the preferred AI for Republican campaigns?

I haven’t followed it.

What is happening in the world of professional politics, talking about the actual campaigns and people supporting candidates, is more mundane. It’s the ways to make operations smarter, more effective, more efficient, and that doesn’t have to be partisan.

That’s part of the frustration with these tech companies shutting off legitimate political actors, campaigns that are registered with the FEC, the IRS, that should be able to use cutting-edge technology to reach voters and advance their message.

Is that the standard you think should apply to political use cases for AI? Permit political use by properly registered campaigns and committees?

That’s one place I would start. Addressing the challenges of political speech requires more nuance than an outright ban, which is the preferred policy approach of big tech right now.

What about deepfakes?

We haven’t had a single instance of a deepfake used by legitimate political actors, unless it’s been disclosed.

What about the concern that less scrupulous political actors will be able to use deepfakes to fool voters?

That risk exists in every industry, not just politics, and you just made a very compelling reason for why official candidates, campaigns and parties should be able to respond to the best of their abilities with all the tools that are available.

The way you stop the bad actors is not by punishing the good guys.

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State Department IG scrutinizing diplomat’s clearance suspension

The State Department’s internal watchdog is scrutinizing the circumstances surrounding the suspension of a top diplomat’s security clearance, according to a letter sent July 21 and viewed by POLITICO.

In the letter, the acting head of the State Department’s Office of Inspector General, Diana Shaw, told a group of Republican senators that her office is looking into the suspension of Rob Malley’s security clearance, taking a step that could lead to a formal investigation.

Until late April, Malley helmed the Biden administration’s efforts to restart a nuclear deal with Iran. But his security clearance was suspended on April 22, according to a person with knowledge of the move, for reasons that remain unknown. Despite losing his access to classified information, Malley kept doing limited work at State for more than two months. But when CNN reported that the clearance had been suspended, he went on unpaid leave.

In the brief letter, Shaw said she decided to review the situation following a letter from the Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that raised a host of questions about the State Department and called on her to act.

“OIG considers several factors when determining whether to initiate work, including statutory requirements, available resources, our jurisdictional authority, and the existence of criteria against which to measure the department’s actions,” she wrote. “Considering these factors and the circumstances you detailed in your letter, we plan to begin a preliminary review.”

Preliminary reviews are often the first steps in fact-finding processes conducted by an inspector general. They usually don’t involve subpoenas or formal interviews, though they may include informal talks with people connected to the relevant events.

The FBI is also investigating. It’s not unusual for inspector general probes to be conducted in parallel with FBI investigations scrutinizing the same general topic.

Congressional Republicans are also looking for more information about Malley’s clearance. On Friday, State Department officials briefed members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the situation. But Chair Michael McCaul (R.-Texas) wasn’t impressed. His spokesperson said that the briefers didn’t give any detail on why his clearance was suspended, citing the Privacy Act. McCaul’s office is expected to follow up soon to seek more information.

Malley has said he has not been told why he lost his clearance. He declined to comment for this story. A State Department spokesperson said the department does not comment on individual security clearances or communications with Congress, and that Malley is still on leave.

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Top New York Democrats unite to counter soft-on-crime attacks from Republicans

NEW YORK — Three of New York’s most prominent Democrats sat shoulder-to-shoulder Monday to announce a gun violence plan intended in part to blunt Republican critics who’ve portrayed the city as a crime-ridden hellscape.

“You can’t say you’re serious about fighting crime if you’re not serious about getting illegal guns off our streets,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a press conference at New York City Hall. “And that is the difference between red states and blue states and the statistics bear it out.”

Last year’s Democratic losses in New York — and Hochul’s own close call — have been blamed on the party’s apparent lack of vision on public safety. Republicans have vilified big-city and big-state Democrats as a part of the problem, saying their energy is spent on social issues when it should be focused on combating crime.

On Monday, Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and state Attorney General Tish James joined dozens of government officials and community leaders to unveil a 54-page blueprint from the city’s Gun Prevention Task Force.

The three repeatedly highlighted what they described as a novel — and necessary — partnership that unites the state’s leading Democrats, whose predecessors were often entangled in intraparty infighting.

The road map commits $485 million toward a multifaceted approach that includes resources for early intervention, housing and police relations. It focuses on six NYPD precincts with the highest rates of gun violence.

The mayor and others stressed New York City as the country’s “safest big city.” Administration officials touted a 27 percent decline in shootings as of last week compared with the same point last year. Officials also said the NYPD has removed more than 11,000 illegal guns from the streets since Adams took office in January 2022.

“It clearly shows that when people are saying, ‘Democrats are soft on crime,’ that’s just not the reality,” said Adams, a former NYPD captain who has staked his mayoralty on increasing public safety.

Both the governor and mayor all but accused Republicans of being hypocrites.

Adams said Republican lawmakers have been blocking gun safety legislation and funding efforts that include boosting police resources.

Hochul hammered home the point. “You can’t say you’re serious about fighting crime if you’re not serious about getting illegal guns off our streets,” she said. “And that is the difference between red states and blue states and the statistics bear it out.”

Hochul last year was forced to revise her campaign approach when it appeared that her GOP opponent, former Rep. Lee Zeldin, was gaining because he focused on public safety while she advocated for abortion rights.

The Democrats’ path to retaking the House majority in 2024 could run through New York, the same state where four upsets last year in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island cost them the speaker’s gavel. And President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects could be improved if Democrat-controlled cities and states show public safety gains.

Adams, while not formally part of Biden’s campaign, could find that his fate influences that of the president.

The mayor said Monday that as the city drives down overall crime, it’ll be a good example to take on the road.

“I think it’s a mistake not to sell the good product that we have as Democrats,” he said.

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Biden administration unwilling to call Niger coup a ‘coup’

The Biden administration is refusing to call the military-backed ouster of Niger’s president a “coup,” knowing that doing so could trigger an end to U.S. security aid to a country that’s key to battling terrorism and curbing Russian influence in Africa.

The reluctance is the latest example of President Joe Biden’s struggle to balance a stated reverence for democracy with the harsh reality of geopolitics, especially when it comes to partner nations tackling challenges such as extremism. Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries, just recently transitioned to democracy in a region where coups have become frequent.

Pressed on the hesitation to use the label for Niger, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller insisted Monday that the situation is “fluid” and still an “attempt” at removing Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum.

“We are watching and monitoring the situation and trying to prevent President Bazoum from being removed from office,” Miller said.

Over the weekend, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the U.S. “economic and security partnership with Niger, which is significant, hundreds of millions of dollars” was in “clear jeopardy.”

A spokesperson for the National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reports from Niamey, the Nigerien capital, show that Bazoum was taken captive by his bodyguards last week. The country’s military then endorsed the ouster, and Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, who oversees the presidential guards, declared he was leading a transitional government. The exact reasons for the coup are unclear, but Tchiani has spoken vaguely of the need to stop the country’s “demise.”

Multiple U.S. officials, including Blinken, have spoken with Bazoum in recent days,and they’ve demanded that Nigerien security forces restore him to power.

But labeling the events “coup” — a legal determination, not simply a matter of using a word — could spur an end to U.S. military equipment and training, and potentially economic aid. Traditionally speaking, a coup d’etat is defined as an illegal seizure of power, often by a country’s military.

If the U.S. is forced to freeze aid to Niger, it will endanger its ties to a crucial Western ally and linchpin of U.S. counterterrorism in the Sahel region, where Islamist militants are steadily expanding their grip.

In 2019, the Pentagon opened a new drone base in the Nigerien city of Agadez that it uses to strike terrorist groups across West and North Africa. The facility, which hosts MQ-9 Reaper drones, cost the U.S. $100 million to construct and roughly $30 million a year to maintain.

The Nigerien armed forces have suspended all flights out of the base, according to a Defense Department official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a developing situation.

Ending U.S. aid could also reduce leverage to convince Niger’s generals to restore democracy, although Washington’s efforts to financially weaken dictatorships, through sanctions for example, have had mixed results at best.

Until the past few days, Niamey was only one of the few remaining democracies in the Sahel: since 2021, neighboring governments in Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad have fallen to military coups.

“Niger was the basket that the U.S. and the French were putting all their eggs in,” said Joshua Meservey, a fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Global leaders, including across Africa, have called for Bazoum to be reinstated. Several of Niger’s neighbors even threatened military intervention if the ousted president is not returned to power by Aug. 6.

But the regional pressure is unlikely to have much effect — in part because it’s unclear whether the African nations have the will or military might to make good on the threat, argued Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“That didn’t work in Mali, it didn’t work in Burkina Faso, it didn’t work in Guinea. Why would it work in Niger?” he said. He added that any intervention might ultimately prove counterproductive by alienating the population.

At the same time, supporters of the coup in Niger have staged marches in which they’ve waved Russian flags, adding to Western worries that Moscow — possibly through the mercenary Wagner Group that has been active in Mali and elsewhere in the region — is fueling the discord.

The Biden administration may be trying to keep its options open because there is still hope the coup could be reversed or the military could transition peacefully to a new democratic government. Regardless of the outcome, experts say, Washington may find a way to work with the Nigerien armed forces because of significant U.S. commitments and interests in the region.

“The U.S. cannot afford to pack up and leave,” Dizolele said.

Other Western countries were quick to suspend aid. France, Germany and the European Union say they are halting financial aid to Niger. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called the events a “putsch.”

France, which ruled Niger as a colony until 1960, has about 1,500 troops there, but the U.S. has a significant military presence, too.

Since 2012, the U.S. has spent $500 million to train and arm the Nigerien armed forces, and stations about 1,100 troops — many of them commandos training and advising Nigerien special forces — in the country.

Niamey has participated for years in the annual Flintlock exercise, Africa’s largest special operations exercise, which sees Western troops training their African partners across the Sahel.

The fate of the base now hangs in the balance: American troops may be compelled by law to leave, or the new Nigerien government could force them out.

If the West cuts aid to Niger, there are also worries that Niamey could turn to Russia and China, or mercenary groups such as Wagner, for assistance. The Kremlin-backed group’s presence has exploded in places such as Mali, for example, after the West largely pulled out due to a 2021 coup.

“Once they launch a coup they become pariahs, but Wagner doesn’t care about that,” said Meservey of the Hudson Institute, noting that other coup governments in the region are working with Russia, China and Iran, another U.S. adversary.

“It may be that coup governments are now calculating that they can survive the inevitable pariah-ization that they will face from the West.”

But the situation is tricky for Biden and his aides, not to mention members of Congress and others who want U.S. economic and military aid to be used wisely.

Washington’s unwillingness to formally label the overthrow in Niger as a coup isn’t unprecedented. It still won’t use the term to describe the 2013 coup in Egypt, another recipient of military aid.

The Obama administration drew much mockery for refusing to use the label. That position hasn’t changed under subsequent administrations.

The State Department spokesperson at the time, Jen Psaki, said the Obama team had “determined we’re not going to make a determination.”

One comedian called it a verbal “kama sutra.”

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Massachusetts DA calls on DOJ to probe Florida migrant flights

BOSTON — The Massachusetts district attorney who represents the wealthy enclave where Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew 49 migrants last September is now calling on the federal Justice Department to investigate the transport.

Cape and Islands District Attorney Robert Galibois sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday asking DOJ to investigate allegations that the migrants were misled into getting on the planes that took them from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.

“My office posits that, due to the interstate transportation of these migrants, this alleged scheme remains available for federal prosecution,” Galibois wrote.

He’s also asking the Justice Department to help translate interviews that were conducted with the migrants in Spanish after they arrived on the island to help further his own investigation.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has also called on the DOJ to probe Florida over the flights.

A spokesperson for the DeSantis administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Galibois is a Democrat who flipped the Republican-held Cape and Islands district attorney seat two months after the migrants arrived on flights orchestrated by the Republican Florida governor’s administration. He took office in January.

Galibois said last week that he intends to investigate the migrant flights and wants the Justice Department to do the same, making the announcement a day before DeSantis was due on Cape Cod for a fundraiser for his presidential campaign.

While DeSantis has touted the migrant flights to Massachusetts on the campaign trail, he didn’t mention the transport during the fundraiser that was just a ferry ride away from Martha’s Vineyard, per an attendee.

Christine Mui contributed to this report.

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Russia will monitor Saudi-hosted Ukraine peace talks

30 countries were invited to discussions on Ukraine in Jeddah — but the Kremlin isn’t included.

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Opinion | How to Break Up Disney

In 1886, railroad and telegraph baron Jay Gould famously boasted, “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” Corporate power, in other words, can keep a nation divided.

This fact of politics was true then, and it’s true now. And we can see that with one of the more unusual dynamics in American politics, as both the left, in the form of an actors’ and writers’ strike, and the right, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are fighting with the giant Disney corporation.

The GOP presidential candidate and the striking Hollywood creatives may not agree on much, but both are aggrieved by Disney’s raw use of power, and perhaps the broader dynamic of corporate monopolies in general. If the right and left join forces, they might be able to take on the entertainment behemoth — and even push to break up the company. Doing so may sound like a fantasy, but it would actually mark a return to the kind of market structure that once characterized the industry, while delivering better results for the broader public.

It’s odd to think that a populist series of rebellions would target Walt Disney’s creation. Disney World is the so-called “happiest place on Earth,” the favored destination of Super Bowl winners and six-year-olds alike. Disney can boast of spurring the golden era of 1950s animation, and then in the 1980s and 1990s of bringing Broadway-caliber theatrics to cartoon films in classics like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and the Little Mermaid. Today, it’s hard to find little girls who don’t love Frozen.

And yet, Disney is a different firm than it was just a few decades ago, and its change reflects a broader transformation in America. The studio is no longer just Walt’s playground but “imperial” Disney, in the words of film critic Matt Zoller Seitz, a colossus formed after a deregulatory push in the 1990s paved the way for a series of mergers and acquisitions that placed huge amounts of intellectual property — from Lucasfilm to Marvel to Pixar to the Muppets to Fox — in the hands of just one company. It now has roughly a quarter of the nation’s theatrical box office take, despite making fewer films than it used to.

CEO Bob Iger, who ditched the beloved Mickey Mouse ties his predecessor wore, made it clear in his biography that his strategy wasn’t to do great storytelling, which is what Americans loved about Disney, but to build a portfolio of brands and extend its power into direct distribution to 160 million homes. In addition, it is now a global empire and has to protect its significant investments in China by offering obsequious gestures to the Chinese government.

The rise of imperial Disney and its vast bargaining leverage has led to considerable fallout. One consequence is simply that Disney, like all giant streaming firms, has reduced its payout to writers, producers, directors, actors, movie theaters and suppliers. The strike consuming Hollywood is a reaction to this dynamic. Another is that the company has raised ticket prices at its theme parks for consumers and eliminated perks that longstanding Disney fans appreciated. A third is that the firm’s creative energy is dissipating, with an endless surfeit of Marvel movies. And fourth, it wields its cultural power in clumsy ways that angered and annoyed large swaths of the public, first by holding its fire on Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law and then by firmly opposing it.

All of these problems are happening now, because Disney, like other firms that have generated bipartisan backlash, such as Google and Facebook, is less a set of businesses trying to sell products than a giant financial institution organized around acquiring and maintaining market power. In other words, the fury directed at the House of Mouse isn’t about Disney, per se; it’s about the end of antitrust enforcement and regulations designed to keep markets open, a shift that’s happened across industries.

America has been here before. And Gould’s quote hints at the challenge of restoring some semblance of the old Disney, and an older and fairer economic order, that we know and love. In the 1880s, populists — a multi-racial movement of farmers in the Midwest and South — wanted to tackle the creeping corporate power that was arising all around them. They saw as a distraction the elevation of 19th century culture war issues, mostly anchored in the post-Civil War political campaign tactics of “waving the bloody shirt” to get voters to remain loyal to either Democrats (the Confederacy) or Republicans (the Union).

Anti-monopolists argued that late 19th century America, with the rise of firms like Standard Oil and giant railroad and telegraph systems, was simply a different place than it had been in 1865. And so politics should change with it. Over the course of decades, a broad coalition reoriented government to do that, making the big corporation safe for democracy by using a variety of traditional regulatory tools, updated for the industrial era.

As movie studios consolidated power over the film industry, the heirs to these populists broke them up after a fight that ended in a landmark 1948 Supreme Court case, United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. After the big three TV networks — NBC, CBS and ABC — gained virtually unfettered control of the market, and began really enriching themselves through their syndication policies, anti-monopolists at the Federal Communication Commission effectively broke them up in 1970.

Today, Gould’s challenge remains. The right and left disagree on much, but both think Disney is too powerful. And yet ultimately dominant corporate power rests on public legitimacy. If policymakers enact rules to break up Disney, as they have in the past with other entertainment industry giants, then that power evaporates. We’ve already seen a hint of that, with DeSantis passing laws stripping Disney of certain economic privileges, and with the striking creatives stopping the flow of new content to Disney’s streaming service.

Forcing studios to once again choose to be either content producers or content distributors might even please investors, who are increasingly unhappy with the poor returns from streaming-first business models. There are forms of this industry structure in the U.K., where a Terms of Trade code put in place since the early 2000s has fostered a vibrant and growing production industry of both large and small firms.

Right now, however, anger at the power of big firms is too inchoate to matter. Despite the strike from the left and political assault from the right, Disney’s leadership remains relatively unfazed, because neither attack is enough to win on its own. Despite their mutual suspicions, the right and left will need to work together if they have any hope of securing real change.

And perhaps there is more in common than we might think. At the end of the day, no one really likes the endless stream of mediocre Marvel and Star Wars movies — except the financiers who prefer controlling markets to great American storytelling.

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