What’s more, Cint discovered that 90% of the UK public is concerned about AI being used to spread misinformation ahead of the election. A number of high-profile political figures, including Labour leader Keir Starmer and London mayor Sadiq Khan, have already fallen victim to deepfakes, which quickly went viral despite being denounced as false.

Currently, the Online Safety Act requires social media platforms to clamp down on harmful content and enforce their terms of service, most of which forbid political deepfakes, backed by the threat of significant fines. However, so far the government has only legislated to ban the sharing of pornographic deepfakes in England and Wales.

But when left unchecked, deepfakes can have a very real impact. In Slovakia’s 2023 general election, a fake audio clip emerged of Michal Šimečka, the leader of the liberal Progressive Slovakia party, apparently discussing how to rig the election. Šimečka went on to lose the election to the populist pro-Moscow Smer-SSD party.

Should we be worried about how deepfakes, AI and social media will impact the upcoming election?