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AI accusations mar UK election as candidate forced to defend authenticity: 'I am a real person'

The Reform UK Party has faced accusations of standing fake candidates generated with AI for various constituencies in the United Kingdom, but investigations disproved those claims.

A number of people on social media raised suspicions that Reform had tried to game the system and propped up fake candidates in many constituencies, of which Matlock, who stood in London's Brixton and Clapham Hill, became the poster boy due to his seemingly artificial appearance. Alan Mendoza, co-founder and executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital that "the political mainstream has been looking to catch Reform out – given its shock surge in the polls – for some time" and that AI proved a useful cudgel to do so. A candidate in last year’s Turkish presidential election claimed that Russia released an AI-generated sex tape that was created with deepfake technology using footage "from an Israeli porn site," The Guardian reported.

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