Eight out of ten Hungarians consider campaign videos made with AI election fraud, survey shows

Eight out of ten Hungarians consider it election fraud when parties use fake videos made with artificial intelligence (AI) during their campaigns, according to a representative survey conducted by Publicus Institute for Népszava.

81 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that deceiving people with fake videos constitutes election fraud, while only 11 percent believed the opposite (8 percent did not answer the question). Ninety-five percent of opposition voters, 69 percent of Fidesz voters, and 76 percent of undecided voters consider such content to be fraud.

According to the survey, 85 percent of respondents would consider introducing legislation addressing the use of artificial intelligence in political campaigns necessary.

Supporters of different political sides hold relatively similar views on videos produced by artificial intelligence. Eighty-seven percent of respondents said it was wrong for these videos to appear in a campaign, and only 1 percent said they were glad they did. Another 6 percent said it was acceptable, and the same number did not answer this question. The highest proportion of "acceptable" responses came from pro-government voters, with 14 percent of them thinking this way.

Forty percent of respondents said that Fidesz is the one that tends to use AI in a misleading way, while 14 percent said that the Tisza Party is the one that does it. Twenty-three percent said that both parties use this technology to the same extent.

When examining this question based on party affiliation, it can be seen that the two camps are mutually accusing each other of manipulation. Forty-seven percent of Fidesz supporters believe that Tisza is more likely to use artificial intelligence in a misleading way, while 23 percent stated that both parties do it to the same extent. However, 78 percent of respondents classified as opposition supporters believe that Fidesz is using AI videos in a deceptive manner, and 17 percent said that Fidesz and Tisza were equally responsible for this. Twenty-six percent of undecided voters said that Fidesz was using this technology in a misleading way, while 4 percent said that Tisza was doing so.

We have previously written in detail about how Fidesz is using fake, AI-generated videos in this article.

This research was conducted using the same methodology as the Publicus Institute's November party preference survey. 1,002 people were contacted by telephone between 10 and 18 November. Any distortions resulting from the sampling were corrected using weighting based on data from the 2022 Hungarian Central Statistical Office census. The diversity of individuals included in the survey in terms of gender, age, educational attainment, region, and type of residence reliably represents the composition of the Hungarian population according to similar criteria. Given the sample size, it can be stated with 95% confidence that the data obtained from the survey deviate by no more than +/- 3.1 percentage points from what would have been obtained by surveying all Hungarian residents aged 18 or older.