Democratic political operative admits he commissioned robocall of AI Biden

A longtime Democratic political operative has admitted he commissioned a robocall which featured an AI-created imitation of Joe Biden discouraging voters from participating in the New Hampshire presidential primary.

In a statement, Steve Kramer said he resorted to “easy-to-use online technology” to mimic the president’s voice and send out the infamous automated call to 5,000 Democrats who were most likely to vote in the 23 January primary.

The robocall remains the subject of a law enforcement investigation. The US government has since outlawed automated calls using AI-generated voices, saying they are a threat to democracy.

“With a mere $500 investment, anyone could replicate my intentional call,” Kramer’s statement – provided to NBC News on Sunday and the Guardian on Monday – also said. “Immediate action is needed across all regulatory bodies and platforms.”

Kramer’s statement stopped short of saying that he had permission from his client at the time of the robocall: the long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips. The Minnesota congressman’s campaign has accused Kramer of commissioning the robocall without permission, and has said it would not work with the operative again after paying him nearly $260,000 in December and January.

Additionally, Kramer’s statement avoided addressing a version of events relayed by a magician and hypnotist from New Orleans who says he was paid $150 to create the audio used in the robocall.

The magician, Paul David Carpenter, said that he had long experimented with social media content creation and generative AI on his beat-up laptop in his free time. He said an acquaintance introduced him to Kramer, who took an interest in Carpenter’s AI work and asked him to imitate certain