AI is helping shape the 2024 presidential race. But not in the way experts feared.

With the 2024 election looming, the first since the mass popularization of generative artificial intelligence, experts feared the worst: social media flooded with AI-generated deepfakes that were so realistic, baffled voters wouldn’t know what to believe.

So far, that hasn’t happened. Instead, what voters are seeing is far more absurd: A video of former President Donald Trump riding a cat while wielding an assault rifle. A mustachioed Vice President Kamala Harris dressed in communist attire. Trump and Harris sharing a passionate embrace.

AI is playing a major role in the presidential campaign, even if the greatest fears about how it could threaten the U.S. presidential election haven’t materialized yet. Fake AI-generated images regularly ricochet around the web, but many of them are so cartoonish and absurd that even the most naïve viewer couldn’t take them seriously.

Still, even these memes can be problematic. Eye-catching AI-generated photos and videos, some striving to be funny, have become useful tools for spreading false, sometimes racist messages with a clear political bent — and candidates and their supporters are among those sharing them on social media.

For example, Trump and many of his allies not only repeatedly promoted the unfounded conspiracy theory that Haitian migrants are stealing and eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, they also spread related AI-generated memes. One shared by Trump’s Truth Social account showed him on a luxury jet, surrounded by cats and white ducks. Another showed a group of kittens holding a sign that read, “DON’T LET THEM EAT US, Vote for Trump!”

Francesca Tripodi, an expert in online propaganda, said such AI-made images are new, viral vehicles to carry age-old anti-immigration narratives.

“The memes that are amplifying this claim are anything but humorous. When you have elected officials who are utilizing this imagery as a way of perpetuating racism and xenophobia, that’s a huge problem,” said Tripodi, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Republicans defend the images as lighthearted jokes — and byproducts of Trump’s personality.

“There is a culture of personality surrounding Donald Trump that encourages that sort of over-the-top communication style that turns things into comical memes,” said Caleb Smith, a Republican strategist. “The intent is to entertain, not to deceive. That is what it should be.”

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not respond to specific questions from The Associated Press but said its strategy had not changed since May, when he provided an emailed statement saying the campaign did not “engage or utilize” tools supplied by any AI company.

Using fake, entertaining, often preposterous images to score political points is hardly new. But unlike cobbled-together Photoshop images or political cartoons, AI-generated images pack a stronger punch with their hyperrealism and can draw new attention to a political message.

While some of the images related to pets in Springfield were cartoonish and silly, many felt they perpetuated a damaging conspiracy theory about a community that has since received bomb threats prompting evacuations of schools and government buildings.

Trump’s embrace of AI-generated images counters some of his past commentary. In an interview on Fox Business this year, Trump called artificial intelligence “very dangerous” and “so scary” because “there’s no real solution” to the issues created by the advancing technology.

And some Republicans have fretted about how Trump and the GOP are using AI to create political memes.

“I don’t engage in memes. I never have. I never will,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican in a competitive district outside Philadelphia. “I just don’t believe in it.”

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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.