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Aug 14, 2026

States rush to police AI deepfakes ahead of midterm elections

Plus, Claude-generated text will be watermarked, and federal regulators order Kalshi to continue to operate in NY state. Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, joins Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino on this week’s “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

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States rush to police AI deepfakes ahead of midterm elections
Arkadiusz Warguła/Getty Images

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Anthropic announced it's adding invisible watermarks to all text generated by its chatbot Claude. The AI startup is rolling out the policy globally as part of efforts to comply with the European Union AI Act.

Plus, there's a patchwork of state laws that regulate AI-generated political messaging — they're being put to the test ahead of the midterm elections. And federal regulators ordered Kalshi to continue to operate in New York, despite a state lawsuit seeking to shut it down.

Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, about all this for this week’s “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

Everything we talked about

“Techies have concerns about Claude's hidden watermark. Anthropic has some answers.” from Business Insider

“Voters face uneven AI deepfake protections” from Axios

“AI deepfakes test Oregon election law” from Axios

“CFTC orders Kalshi to continue offering prediction markets in New York after state lawsuit” from CoinDesk

The Team