r/sugarland • u/Arrmadillo • 1d ago
Fort Bend judge candidate uses AI to create Black 'supporters' in political ad
Fort Bend County Judge Daniel Wong is facing heat for posting a campaign video generated by artificial intelligence that depicts Black people voicing support for his campaign.
Fort Bend County is facing heat for posting a campaign video generated by artificial intelligence that depicts Black people voicing support for his campaign because he paid for their basic needs.
Wong, a Republican who and is seeking a full term Nov. 3, posted a video on Facebook Friday morning that shows six Black, AI-generated "supporters" thanking Wong for his help in finding them jobs, getting them food and paying their light bills. The video has since been deleted from Wong's social media pages.
"(He helped me) at my worst time," says one AI-generated character, who wears a misspelled "Daniel Wong" hat and stands in front of an illegible roadside marquee covered in gibberish letters.
Fort Bend County Pct. 4 Commissioner Dexter McCoy, Wong's Democratic opponent, said the video was "reprehensible and disgusting" for reducing the perception of Black voters to people simply looking for a "handout."
Making matters worse, McCoy said, was that the AI-generated characters depict the likenesses of real people — in this case, paid Wong campaign workers who were asked to send in selfies when they checked in for work at polling places, according to McCoy.
"Stealing the faces of ordinary people to fake support from Black voters is racist, vile and flat-out wrong," McCoy said. "Wong knows his agenda is extreme and it doesn't sell well in Fort Bend County, so he's using AI to manufacture support that he can't earn, and I don't think that's the judgement of someone ready to lead the most diverse county in Texas."
The Wong campaign did not respond to questions about whether the video was based on photos of his campaign staff. Wong posted a statement Saturday night claiming, without evidence, that the video was created by a Democrat and shared with his campaign. The campaign did not respond to a request for further comment.
"McCoy has rolled out the tired 'race card' to blast fellow Democrats simply because they support County Judge Daniel Wong," the campaign statement said. "McCoy should apologize to voters for sinking so low and making every issue about race."
Deepfakes dominate political advertising
AI-generated advertisements have proliferated in the 2026 midterms, though Texas was the first state to regulate the practice by prohibiting "deepfakes" from airing 30 days before an election. That hasn't stopped Republicans from using the technology to target Democratic candidates like U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico, gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa and lieutenant governor challenger Vikki Goodwin, however.
Goodwin filed a police report against Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick last month arguing that two such advertisements violated state law. Patrick deleted the advertisements — which depict Goodwin, Talarico and Hinojosa nagging college football fans across Texas — but his campaign defended them, calling them an “obvious parody produced to entertain."
Wong, on the other hand, appeared to try and pass off the AI-generated content as the real perspective of real Black voters.
"Our county is worth fighting for. These brave men and women show it and know it," he wrote in the video's caption. "A big thank you to the people who believe in me — and who made this video."
Liam Mayes, a media studies expert at Rice University, said audiences already seem to be drawing a distinction between AI-generated ads like Wong's and those supporting Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, which depict Talarico in absurd scenarios like one in which he performs gender-affirming surgery on children.
"My sense is that many of the people who see those ads recognize that James Talarico, in real life, didn't say the words that he's saying in the ads," Mayes said. "But it can still confirm some sort of larger belief they have about him and can still be an effective piece of political propaganda."
Mayes said the rapid evolution of AI technology makes it difficult to establish acceptable boundaries, but believes that Wong's alleged misrepresentation of real peoples' likenesses could be "broadly considered as an ad that crossed a lot of lines."
"That to me seems like deeply unethical behavior," Mayes said.
Fort Bend's tumultuous year
Wong's ad is the latest twist in a tumultuous year for Fort Bend County politics. Just last week, Fort Bend County Tax Assessor-Collector Carmen Turner was arrested on federal embezzlement charges.
Wong, a former Sugar Land City Council member, was appointed to the judgeship in April after former judge K.P. George was suspended from office following a conviction for felony money laundering. His appointment was quickly disputed by County Attorney Bridgette Smith-Lawson, whom he sued to stay in office.
Wong has since gutted the county attorney's office, and remains in his interim role heading into the general election Nov. 3.