The question of the legality of using artificial intelligence in political advertising has been resolved by the Supreme Court of Russia. The court ruled that the use of neural networks to create images of people in campaign materials is illegal, as reported by "Vedomosti".
The basis for the proceedings was a complaint filed by the Chelyabinsk branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). As part of the election campaign for the regional legislative assembly, the party released a campaign leaflet featuring characters created with the help of AI. The regional election commission prohibited the distribution of the leaflet, stating that the law allows only two types of images: either the candidate themselves or an "indeterminate group of people." The generated images did not fit either of these categories.
The legal team of the CPRF argued in their cassation appeal that the characters created for the layout do not have real prototypes. As evidence, they pointed to the flaws in the neural network's work: for example, the child in the leaflet had six fingers, and the contours of the woman appeared abnormal. However, the Supreme Court did not take these arguments into account.
The leadership of the CPRF stated that they intend to appeal this decision to the Constitutional Court after a thorough analysis of the reasoning behind the ruling.
