The Yoon Moment

Opposition candidate Yoon Suk-yeol was elected president of South Korea last week in the country’s tightest race since restoring direct presidential elections in 1987.

But the contest also made headlines for an entirely different reason – the Yoon campaign’s embrace of AI.

✋ Wait, what?... In a concept straight out of Black Mirror, a local deepfake company used 20 hours of specially-recorded audio and video to create a digital avatar of Yoon. 

• The avatar was able to personally respond to questions on social media using replies written by Yoon’s campaign team, which said they would “try to come up with humorous and satirical answers" that weren’t always “politically correct.”
• And it appears to have worked – Yoon’s popularity amongst 20-somethings was above 40% near election time, up from around 30% in early January.

🤔 Is this legal?... Under South Korean law, AI candidates are allowed to campaign as long as they’re clearly identified as deepfake technology and don’t spread misinformation.

🇺🇸 Closer to home: The use of AI to influence elections isn’t a novel idea. In 2018, Oscar-winning filmmaker Jordan Peele created a deepfake of former President Barack Obama that warned voters about trusting everything you see online.

• In recent years, a pair of federal laws have been passed instructing the Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation to research deepfake technology and come up with solutions to authenticate content.
• A handful of states, including Texas and California, have outlawed AI-manipulated videos of candidates posted up to two months before an election, though most states don’t have any such regulations.

💬 What they're saying... “We want voters to see the human side of Yoon — not the stern image he projects on television,” the AI Yoon team’s head told the WSJ.