A candidate for Britain's populist Reform UK party has had to defend himself after being accused of not being a real person but actually an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated candidate who stood for election last month.
“I'm a real person and that's me in the photo,” Mark Matlock confirmed to The Independent. “Although I must admit I do enjoy the free publicity and when I feel like it I'll post a video and prove that these rumours about me being a robot are absolute nonsense.”
“I laughed a lot when I saw it,” he added. “I think it cheered me up. I thought, 'I've got to get back out there.' This is doing me more good than my campaign, it's fantastic.”
The reform exceeded expectations in the last general election in the United Kingdom, obtaining 14% of the votes, which only translated into 1% of the seats in the House of Commons (five seats in total) due to the “single-past-the-post” system.
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The party's success was enough to deeply impact the ruling Conservative Party's candidates, splitting the vote at the lowest turnout in nearly a century, resulting in a near-historic victory for the rival Labour Party.
Several people on social media raised suspicions that Reform had tried to manipulate the system and supported fake candidates in many constituencies, of which Matlock, who stood in Brixton and Clapham Hill in London, became the poster boy due to his seemingly artificial appearance.
Photo of Mark Matlock, Reform UK candidate for Clapham and Brixton Hill, from the party's website. (Reform Party of the United Kingdom)
Alan Mendoza, co-founder and CEO of the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital that “mainstream politics has been looking to nail Reform — given its surprising rise in the polls — for some time” and that AI proved a useful cudgel in doing so.
“The surprise factor of the election and the need for Reform to field as many candidates as it could, even in unwinnable seats, provided ample opportunity to do so, and some Reform candidates were indeed exposed for their unsavory views,” Mendoza argued.
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“The idea of AI candidates was simply an extension of that approach, although it has now been shown to be completely false,” he said, adding that more such allegations will arise in cases where an election is called at short notice, resulting in “paper candidates” who may never be known to their potential voters.
“Of course, if such a candidate were to actually win, the whole scheme would collapse, so it's hard to imagine the circumstances under which a political party would ever stoop so low,” Mendoza said, referring to candidates generated entirely by AI.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage attends the Clacton constituency election count in Clacton-on-Sea, England, July 5, 2024. (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Online users pointed out a serious lack of online activity by many of the Reform candidates and soon began analyzing leaflets and campaign materials they claimed featured AI-generated candidates, Scottish outlet The National reported.
Green Party candidate Shao-Lan Yuen seized on these allegations, saying she had “seen and heard nothing” from Matlock, who was standing as a challenger in her constituency. She cited “suspicions” that people said he could be generated by artificial intelligence, and independent candidate Jon Key said he saw “no sign” of Matlock on election night.
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Key claimed Matlock “does not live in the district” and that he had not received a response to an email he sent, which he had sent to every other candidate he ran against, but Matlock claimed to have been sick on election night.
“I had pneumonia three days before election night. I was working out, taking vitamins to get through, but it wasn't viable,” Matlock said. “On election night, I couldn't even stand up.”
UK Reform MP Lee Anderson (left), UK Reform Party leader Nigel Farage, UK Reform MP Rupert Lowe, UK Reform Party chairman Richard Tice and UK Reform MP James McMurdock appear in the House of Commons in Westminster, London, July 9, 2024. (Maja Smiejkowska/PA Images via Getty Images)
Referring to his campaign poster, Matlock explained: “The photo of me was taken outside the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. I had the background removed and replaced with the logo, and they changed the colour of my tie.”
“The only reason we did it was because we couldn't get a photographer on such short notice, but that's me,” he insisted.
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Matlock told the BBC that she received “a lot of vileness” from people online, which she described as “very mean” and dismissed their taunts as “unnecessary”. The BBC also reported that its own investigation into Reform UK's claims of fake candidates had revealed “no evidence” of any fraudulent candidates.
Reform admitted that in a last-minute rush to find candidates (due to then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's surprise snap election decision) they were so “desperate” to find candidates that they ended up recruiting some friends and family to run for office.
Reform UK leader Clacton MP Nigel Farage, Reform UK chairman Boston and Skegness MP Richard Tice and Ashfield MP Lee Anderson attend a Reform UK press conference on July 5, 2024 in London. (Guy Smallman/Getty Images)
“Basically, these are friends, relatives, office workers,” a party spokesman told reporters. “One of the candidates got his partner to run.”
The entire episode highlights growing concerns about the potential impact of AI on elections as the technology continues to improve.
A candidate in last year's Turkish presidential election has claimed that Russia published an AI-generated sex video that was created using deepfake technology using images “from an Israeli porn site,” The Guardian reported.
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“I don't have that image or that sound recording,” said Muharrem Ince before announcing that he would be leaving the show following the “defamation.” “This is not my private life, it's slander. It's not real.”
Nebraska Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, during a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing in 2023, referenced China and its alleged use of deepfake videos to spread propaganda on social media platforms.
