The Big Story

Elon Musk has been accused of violating the policies of his platform X after sharing a fake video of Vice President Harris that used an artificial intelligence (AI) voice mimicking the likely Democratic nominee to spew insults about her campaign and President Biden.

© AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, Pool

The video shared by Musk on Friday mocks a Harris campaign ad and features a voiceover calling Biden “senile” and the vice president the “ultimate diversity hire,” our colleague Nick Robertson reported.

The video does not contain any disclaimer that it uses AI to mimic Harris’s voice, though the original post from the account @MrReaganUSA labels it a parody . Musk made no such distinction in his own post, a move that appears to violate X site policy barring “misleading media.”

The Harris campaign knocked Musk over the video.

“We believe the American people want the real freedom, opportunity, and security Vice President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump,” campaign spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said in an email.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) also called out the post, arguing that it should illegal to manipulate a person’s voice as the video does. Newsom noted that he plans to sign “a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is.”

Fellow Californian, Rep. Barbara Lee (D) , similarly denounced the deepfake video Monday and argued that it shows a need for guardrails on the technology.

“In addition to it being disgusting, it shows you just how dangerous [Musk] is and how dangerous it is for social media not to have guardrails,” Lee said. “And how we need to make sure that as we look at AI and move forward, that there are some regulatory guardrails and rules that it has to follow.”

Read more in a full report at TheHill.com .

Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter , we’re Rebecca Klar and Julia Shapero — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.

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