95bFM The implications of the ACT Party using AI in social media content
23 April 2025
Interview by Sara McKoy, adapted by Sanat Singh
The University of Otago’s Dr Olivier Jutel says the ACT Party’s recent usage of an AI stock image named ‘happy Māori couple sitting in a cozy living room,’ shows a shift in AI usage in political spaces.
The ACT Party has recently used an AI stock image from Adobe AI titled ‘happy Māori couple sitting in a cozy living room, generated ai’ in a social media post underneath the tagline 'Kiwis are saving over $150 per week on their mortgages since ACT entered government'.
ACT MP, Todd Stephenson, who authorised the ad, told Newsroom that the party was not completely aware that the image was AI-generated and that ACT “would never use an actor or AI to impersonate a real person”.
Currently, there are no regulations for AI-generated imagery with political content.
The use of AI by the party has raised concerns over the active replacement of human labour, the reinforcement of political stereotypes, and AI’s environmental impact.
Media, Film, and Communications Professor at the University of Otago, Dr Olivier Jutel, told 95bFM’s The Wire that ACT manufactured an image of an ideal middle-class Māori couple to gain favour with a community they have historically not had a lot of political capital with.
“It is symptomatic of this overall use of AI increasingly among the political parties of the right. I should add that Todd Stephenson of the ACT Party has said to Newsroom that this was a mistake. I'm not really buying that.”
Jutel says right-wing political parties have an interest in using artificially generated material to communicate politically.
He says this adds fuel to the fire regarding the relationship between the country’s political-right and creative industries.
“It's basically flipping the bird to media professionals and creatives that they tend to see as decadent professions of the ‘woke’ or something.”
Jutel says the usage of AI is becoming more normalised in political content.
He finds this concerning as it could potentially lead to further polarisation, online trolling, and a drumming up of tensions of a “culture war”.
“UK writer Gareth Watkins wrote of this new era of AI use, which he labels postmodern conservatism as an imitation of realism, which can produce art the way right-wingers like it; depthless imagery that yields only the reading that its creator intended, ” Jutel says.
He says this is not the first time AI has been used in Aotearoa for right-wing political campaigning.
“The Free Speech Union did an AI short film, which was all about the case of the real estate agents not wanting to do a cultural competency course for [their] real estate license. It's part of this sort of fantasy projection of the utopia that the right wants to build.”
Despite all of these concerns, Jutel says the ACT’s party's admission of a mistake is a positive sign.
He hopes the public and consumers reject prominent AI usage in this space, as he says this is making social media platforms worse.
“Facebook is awash with slop. X is the same. I'm hoping it doesn't, at the end of the day, like, just truly resonate with people.”
