Call me optimistic or naive, but I don’t worry too much about AI having a major effect on democratic elections, primarily because all of the things it is replacing or augmenting are edge case scenarios where a minute faction of votes ends up winning an election. There is already a massive amount of machinery and money aimed at that sliver, and all AI will probably do is make that operation more efficient and marginally more effective.

For the vast majority of people voting, though, I think a) they already know who they’re voting before because of their identity group membership (“I’m a X person so I only vote for Y party”) or b) their voting is based on fundamental issues like the economy, a particularly weak candidate, etc. and therefore isn’t going to be swayed by these marginal mechanisms.

In fact I think AI might have the opposite effect, in that people will find candidates more appealing if they are on less formal podcasts and in more real contexts - the kind of thing AI will have a harder time doing. The last US election definitely had an element of that.

So I guess the takeaway is: if elections are so close that a tiny amount of voters sway them, the problem of polarization is already pretty extensive enough that AI probably isn’t going to make it much worse than it already is.