Sci-Fi About Deepfakes and Election Disinformation: 4 Works Checked Against the Record
Four reviewed films, shows and books about fake footage, captured information and rigged elections, with what has actually happened to each idea.
The best sci-fi about deepfakes and election disinformation we've reviewed is The Capture, the BBC thriller where nobody can trust CCTV. Next is Infomocracy, Malka Older's novel of an election run by the company that runs the internet. Then AI 2041, whose Lagos story is about a political deepfake trade, and Black Mirror's "Joan Is Awful", on what you agree to when you click "accept".
All four have a score, a Nearness reading and a prediction ledger. The reading across them is useful. Fake political audio has already reached voters, in Slovakia in 2023 and New Hampshire in 2024. Disinformation aimed at an election was documented in 2016. What hasn't arrived is the tidy villain: a state quietly rewriting live camera feeds, or a private company counting the votes. The real damage on the record is to trust, and our ledgers say plainly that whether any of it changed a result is unknown.
Picks are ranked by how closely they track the problem as it now exists. For related lists, see sci-fi about surveillance and sci-fi about social media and online ratings.
A chase thriller that keeps asking whether footage can be evidence. Its central idea, live video altered convincingly enough to fool investigators, is ARRIVING: in 2024 a Hong Kong finance worker paid out about $25.6 million after a video call with deepfake colleagues. Courts are behind, as the show suggests. The US federal evidence committee has drafted a deepfake rule but not approved it. Scores 7.6. Watch it for the argument, though the plot sometimes outruns it.
Older's thought experiment: the world votes in overlapping governments, and one company, Information, runs search, news and the count. Half of it has landed. A US court found in August 2024 that Google illegally held a search monopoly, and a Senate committee found a Kremlin-linked operation targeted the 2016 election. The company that counts the votes is rated FAR. It reads as a policy seminar with a pulse. Scores 7.4.
Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan pair ten stories with essays. "Gods Behind the Masks" follows a Lagos hacker hired to out-fake a political propagandist. Our ledger rates synthetic political media ARRIVED: the Slovak election clip, then an AI-generated Biden voice in New Hampshire that led to a $6 million FCC fine. It is a textbook with stories attached, and it scores 6.6. Read it for the essays.
Not an election story, but a story about consent to be copied. A streamer makes a drama of your life from your own devices, and the terms you clicked allow it. The paperwork is ARRIVED: Zoom's 2023 terms drew criticism for AI rights and were revised within days, and the 2023 SAG-AFTRA agreement created a category of digital replica. The personalised show is not. It is funny, and scores 7.6.
Has an AI deepfake affected a real election?
Yes, in attempts. Two days before Slovakia's September 2023 election, a fabricated audio clip of a party leader spread online. In January 2024 an AI-generated Biden voice told New Hampshire voters to skip their primary, and the FCC fined the consultant behind it $6 million. Whether either changed an outcome is unknown, as the ledger in our AI 2041 review says.
Can disinformation change how people vote?
The evidence is mixed. Our Infomocracy ledger cites a large study of field experiments that found the average persuasive effect of campaign contact close to zero. What is documented is damage to trust in the result, and that is the harm the claim is rated on.
Can courts tell real video from fake?
Not by a settled rule yet. The US federal evidence committee has drafted Rule 901(c), which would put the first burden on whoever says an item is a deepfake, but it has not been finally approved. Our ledger covers the US federal system only. See the review of The Capture.
Where can I see how these predictions score?
On the P(n) Board, which lists every claim with its status and date.