Harris’ speech on abortion was likely AI-generated, imposed on a home insurance ad from 2021

A video shows a boy in a dress making a mess at home, tossing feathers and glitter, throwing shoes at light fixtures, spilling paint on the floor and smearing it on the cabinets.

A social media user claimed it was Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ latest ad to promote reproductive rights.

"BREAKING: New Kamala Harris campaign ad features a mother expressing regret for not having an abortion," the caption of an Oct. 2 X post read. "Absolutely disgusting. How can anyone vote for this?"

The video features a voice-over that resembles Harris’ voice. "We must protect a woman's right to choose her own path for herself, for her family, for her future," the voice says. "So we don't wind up living with a child like this."

A Harris-Walz logo appears in the screen’s upper left-hand corner, but this isn’t a Harris-Walz campaign ad. It’s a 2021 home insurance ad from United Kingdom-based John Lewis & Partners.

The Harris campaign declined to comment on this claim.

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stated on September 11, 2024 in an Instagram post

"Debate moderators made the false claim to Donald Trump that there is nowhere in the United States where abortion is legal up until birth."

When the John Lewis ad ran, some people criticized it for being "sexist" and "divisive." It was ultimately pulled, not because of the backlash, but because the Financial Conduct Authority, the U.K.’s financial services industry regulator, deemed it misleading. The insurance covered only accidental damage, not the kind of deliberate damage portrayed in the video. 

Although Harris champions reproductive rights in her campaign platform, we found no evidence that the video’s voice-over represents her authentic speech. Hany Farid, University of California, Berkeley, computer science professor, analyzed the audio and told PolitiFact it is likely "AI-generated or AI-manipulated."

The voice in the fake ad "doesn’t sound quite like Harris in terms of the cadence or the intonations," he said.

Siwei Lyu, a computer science and engineering professor at the University at Buffalo, agreed with Farid, saying the speed of the speech "does not seem to match with the regular respiratory cycle." The spaces between words and sentences were "too short" for inhaling and exhaling, he said.

Att the 00:45 mark, the ad’s narrator says, "We cannot stand by while freedom is stripped away." Farid said he noticed what he described as "a noticeable artifact in the word ‘by’ that is suggestive of AI-generation."

Another notable difference: The fake ad features an instrumental version of Stevie Nicks’ "Edge of Seventeen." The original John Lewis ad featured  Nicks’ original track. 

"The (overlaid) music track is a common trick used to conceal evidence of AI-generation or manipulation," Farid said. 

Harris didn’t release an ad that "features a mother expressing regret for not having an abortion." We rate that Pants on Fire!