A Queens council candidate appears to be using AI campaign images – should it matter?

The website of City Council candidate Ruben Wills appears to use undisclosed AI images, bringing up questions about AI’s place in local politics. Screenshot via Wills’ website

By Ryan Schwach

Most campaign websites for candidates running for City Council in New York City tend to hit the same notes.

The sites almost always include a tale about the candidate’s background and some words about their policy positions. There are often photos of the candidate smiling brightly next to their supporters or action shots of them walking about in the neighborhood they hope to represent.

Queens City Council candidate Ruben Wills’ website is mostly like all the others, with one subtle exception.

Every photo on Wills’ campaign website that isn't of the candidate himself appears to be generated by artificial intelligence, according to experts and several online tools designed to detect AI-generated images.

The candidate’s use of the images raises questions about the impact of AI in political campaigns, which have utilized the tool more and more in recent years. It’s still very early days for AI’s use in politics, a practice that potentially has far reaching consequences that political institutions and state law may not be fully prepared for, experts say.

Wills, a onetime councilmember who was expelled from the Council after being convicted of corruption charges he was later cleared of, is only the latest candidate seeking office to seemingly use the tool.

President Donald Trump has used AI-generated images blasted out on both his personal social media pages and the White House’s official X page, like one of the 47th president wielding a red-colored lightsaber and another that showed the president dancing in sync with Elon Musk to “Stayin' Alive” by the Bee Gees.

President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video that depicted him and elon Musk dancing together in sync. Screenshot via Donald Trump/X

The Trump administration has also used AI in more academic settings. Last month, Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., released a plan allegedly written with AI that included citations of several non-existent medical studies.

AI has made its way into New York City politics as well. In April, Democratic mayoral frontrunner Andrew Cuomo released a housing plan that featured a citation leading back to ChatGPT. Though the former governor was accused of using the AI chat tool to write the brief, his campaign claimed that it was only used for research purposes.

New Yorkers may have also recently caught televised campaign ads from New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Josh Gottheimer, which featured images of the Democratic congressman as a boxer. The ad disclosed that the images were created with AI.

Unlike Trump and Gottheimer’s use of AI, Wills’ alleged AI images don’t depict the candidate himself.

One photo on his website appears to depict a group of people playing in a playground. Nearly all of their faces are distorted and one figure’s arm appears to be fused with their leg.

ONe of the images likely to have been generated by AI on Council Candidate Ruben Wills’ website. Screenshot via Wills’ website.

Another image shows a smartphone, though the text on the phone appears to be written in unrecognizable symbols.

There’s also a photo of two men, who appear to be sharing a laugh while looking at a piece of paper. One of the men depicted in the photo is wearing a backpack, which has a number of unrecognizable features.

And one photo shows three, young smiling individuals, two of whom are wearing shirts that read “Ruben Wills for City Council District 28.” In front of them is a stack of papers, which appear to be deformed.

Dr. Syed Ahmad Chan Bukhari, a tenured associate professor of computer science at St. John’s University who researches AI, reviewed the images at the Eagle’s request and said that to his understanding, the images were artificially generated.

“You can tell an image is AI-generated by closely observing unnatural details like inconsistent lighting, distorted textures, or overly sharp and flawless features that don’t match real-world imperfections,” Bukhari said.

No where on Wills’ site is it noted that the images are AI generated.

Wills did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.

A photo of two men talking that appears to be AI generated. The photo was used on Council candidate Ruben Wills’ campaign site. Screenshot via Ruben Wills’ campaign website

Wills’ website was designed by C&P Creative, a New Jersey-based company that predominantly features AI in its work, which centers around “political advocacy and non-profit marketing.”

The company’s YouTube channel features three videos, two of which are about the use of AI. A disclaimer included in one of their videos reads: “We are not AI professionals; our content is drawn from years of experience, research, and a passion for how AI can innovate in design, marketing, and development. We aim to provide educational and informational content to inspire and engage, but we advise viewers to seek professional advice for specific AI implementations or decisions.”

According to Campaign Finance data, Wills paid C&P $3,000 on May 1, and owes them another $4,000 for graphic design and website work.

The $3,000 payout accounts for around 80 percent of his overall expenditures through mid-May, records show.

The Eagle reached out to C&P Creative via email but did not receive a response. The Eagle also called a phone number associated with the C&P Creative, but the person who picked up denied having any knowledge of the company.

Wills may not be the only candidate running for office in New York City this year allegedly using AI. The tool is becoming increasingly prevalent in politics. But experts say New Yorkers have yet to contend with either the consequences or benefits of its use.

“AI is very pervasive, and we are not having a thorough, broad-based conversation about how it should be regulated and where it is appropriate to use it or not use it,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of good-government group Common Cause New York. “But in politics, we know that we do not want deceptive images. We don't want the public thinking something is true when it's not.”

Last year, the state took a step to regulate AI in the political world.

A bill, based on legislation sponsored by Queens Assemblymember Clyde Vanel and by Queens State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, made it into the Fiscal Year 2025 state budget and attempted to put some parameters on the use of the tool.

The amendment to state law specified that all “political communications" must disclose in some form that media had been manipulated or generated. However, the law's definition of the term “political communication” is broad.

The amendment also doesn’t make a distinction between how AI is used, only that it needs to be disclosed when it’s used.

“There's no big versus small bar,” said Lerner. “You have to disclose that they are AI-generated.”

Ultimately, it’s up to voters to decide whether or not a campaign’s use of AI crosses any ethical lines, Lerner said.

“We don't have the government saying, ‘This use of AI is okay, this use of AI isn't,’” Lerner said. “We're providing information to the voter to decide for themselves.”

Gonzalez's bill, the New York Fair Act, explicitly gave candidates the power to seek legal remedies if they are depicted in deceptive AI-generated media by their opponents.

Governor Kathy Hochul, who included Gonzalez’s bill in the budget, said in a statement last year that the legislation “will help to set important guardrails around the use of this cutting-edge technology and give law enforcement the tools it needs to go after bad actors.”

The bill was less aimed at the use of basic, stock image-like photos, like some of the images used by Wills, but rather the more dramatic and blatantly nefarious uses like deepfakes that depict political opponents doing things they did not actually do.

The bill’s enforcement mechanism requires an aggrieved candidate or victim to bring a claim in court or a complaint to the Board of Elections.

The city’s Board of Elections did not respond to an email asking about their regulation of undisclosed AI in campaign media.

Gonzalez said that she and her colleagues found it prudent to push through the AI-focused legislation last year, as a contentious presidential election was unfolding on the national stage. The lawmaker, who represents Long Island City and parts of Brooklyn and who chairs the Senate’s Internet and Technology Committee, called AI deepfakes “one of the biggest threats to our democracy.”

“We are now looking at that tool on an entirely new scale that we've never dealt with before,” she said. “It really is fundamental to any conversation about how to protect, not only our elections, but really how to protect the integrity of our democracy.”

For both Gonzalez and Lerner, the objective behind a candidate’s use of AI is key.

“There isn't necessarily something barring someone from using AI to create a deepfake of a picture on their website, but it's all about intent,” Gonzalez said. “If a campaign is using deep fakes to convince a voter that something happened that did not happen with the intent of influencing the election result, then that is certainly something that should be called into question.”

Gonzalez also added that some of Wills’ images, like the one of the phone, aren’t particularly harmful, but the image on Wills’ website of the supporters in campaign t-shirts is potentially more problematic.

“I think that is a higher risk picture, and I think that that's where I certainly get uncomfortable,” she said. “I do not think campaigns should be auto-generating images of volunteers, supporters, voters that they might not have, because broad support is still a barometer for how a voter might make a decision on election day.”

AI’s use in politics could also have benefits or serve as a helpful tool for voters. Gonzalez said AI could be used to create an animation to articulate a policy proposal, or simply create icons and other graphics for a campaign.

Its use in the political world is becoming more common for the same reasons it’s being used more and more in other fields, from medicine, to sports, to journalism.

“It's quick and easy and inexpensive,” said Lerner. “It's faster and easier to use AI than it is to find three volunteers and print up a t-shirt with your name on it and figure out where you're going to take the photo. It is often a cheap and efficient shortcut.”

“So long as you disclose it,” she added.

But like many technologies, the state’s regulation of AI is likely already one step behind, Gonzalez and Lerner both said.

“We have not really hit the right level of regulation for AI,” said Lerner. “I think we need to see a much more thorough discussion of the use of AI, and I think the public needs to have more awareness of how pervasive it can be.”

“What are the limits? Where are the boundaries?” she added.

Gonzalez said she would support further regulations in New York, calling for a new “standard” or “framework.”

But even if laws regulating AI’s use make their way into the books this year, new regulations will likely be necessary by the time the laws go into effect.

“Even since we passed this bill in the last year, we've seen new features enabled or just perfected in a way that we didn't anticipate,” Gonzalez said. “I think that would mean that we certainly would need to come out to the table and acknowledge that we are in a new place.”