How Argentina’s new president-elect used AI to target his opponents during the campaign

In the final weeks of campaigning, Argentine President-elect Javier Milei published a fabricated image depicting his Peronist rival Sergio Massa as an old-fashioned communist in military garb, his hand raised aloft in salute.

The apparently AI-generated image drew some 3 million views when Milei posted it on a social media account, highlighting how the rival campaign teams used artificial intelligence technology to catch voters’ attention in a bid to sway the race.

“There were troubling signs of AI use” in the election, said Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

“Campaigners used AI to deliver deceptive messages to voters, and this is a risk for any election process,” he told Context.

Right-wing libertarian Milei won Sunday’s run-off with 56% of the vote as he tapped into voter anger with the political mainstream – including Massa’s dominant Peronist party, but both sides turned to AI during the fractious election campaign.

Massa’s team distributed a series of stylised AI-generated images and videos through an unofficial Instagram account named “AI for the Homeland”.

In one, the centre-left economy minister was depicted as a Roman Emperor. In others, he was shown as a boxer knocking out a rival, starring on a fake cover of New Yorker magazine and as...

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