New Orleans magician says he made AI Biden robocall for aide to challenger

A magician in New Orleans says he was the person who used artificial intelligence to create an audio recording of Joe Biden used in an infamous robocall and that he was paid by a consultant for the president’s primary challenger, Dean Phillips.

NBC News reported Paul David Carpenter, who holds several world records and also works as a hypnotist, provided it with text messages, call logs and payment documentation to back up his claims.

Carpenter claimed he was hired by Steve Kramer, a consultant for Phillips’s campaign, to use AI to mimic Biden’s voice discouraging people from voting in New Hampshire’s 23 January primary.

“I created the audio used in the robocall [but] I did not distribute it,” Carpenter reportedly told NBC. “I was in a situation where someone offered me some money to do something and I did it.

“There was no malicious intent. I didn’t know how it was going to be distributed.”

The audio recording is currently under investigation by law enforcement officials, and prompted the US government to outlaw robocalls using AI-generated voices.

Carpenter told NBC it was “so scary” how easy it was for him to produce the fake audio, saying it took less than 20 minutes and cost him $1. In return, he was paid $150, as documented in Venmo payments from Kramer and his father, Bruce Kramer, that Carpenter reportedly supplied to NBC.

He also shared what he described as the original robocall audio file, which he manufactured with software from ElevenLabs, an AI firm that touts its ability to create a voice clone from existing speech samples.

NBC said Kramer, a veteran political operative, did not comment on Carpenter’s version of events and would soon publish an opinion piece that would “explain all”.

In a statement, Phillips’s