US cites AI deepfakes as reason to keep Biden recording with Robert Hur secret

DoJ filing says president's interview with special counsel about handling of classified documents could be improperly altered'

The US Department of Justice is making a novel legal argument to keep a recording of an interview with Joe Biden from becoming public. In a filing late last week, the bureau cited the risk of AI-generated deepfakes as one of the reasons it refuses to release audio of the president's interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The conversation about Biden's handling of classified documents is a source of heated political contention, with Republicans pushing for release of the recordings and the White House moving to block them.

The justice department's filing, which it released late on Friday night, argues that the recording should not be released on a variety of grounds including privacy interests and executive privilege. One section of the filing, however, is specifically dedicated to the threat of deepfakes and disinformation, stating that there is substantial risk people could maliciously manipulate the audio if it were to be made public.