More than AI misinformation, U.S. voters worry about lying politicians

As the bitterly contested U.S. election campaign enters its final stretch, misinformation researchers have raised the alarm over threats artificial intelligence and foreign influence pose — but voters appear more concerned about falsehoods from a more familiar source: politicians.

The United States is battling a firehose of misinformation before the Nov. 5 vote — from fake “news” sites that researchers say were created by Russian and Iranian actors, to manipulated images generated by AI tools that have blurred the boundaries between reality and fiction.

More concerning for voters, however, is misinformation spreading the good-old-fashioned way, through politicians sowing falsehoods, with researchers saying they face almost no legal consequences for distorting the truth.