New Hampshire’s top law enforcement official said, “We have never seen … such a blatant attempt to mislead voters.”

New Hampshire’s Attorney General on Tuesday named a Texas telecom company as the source of an apparently AI-generated robocall impersonating President Joe Biden that told Democrats not to vote in last month’s presidential primary.

At a news conference in Concord, John Formella, a Republican, said his office has opened a criminal investigation after it worked with the Federal Communications Commission and a private industry group to trace the source of robocalls.

NBC News was the first to report that the calls had been made to voters ahead of the January primary vote.

With artificial intelligence technology becoming more accessible, Formella said he and other law enforcement agencies want to make an example of the case to deter others from trying something similar ahead of the November election.

…

Investigators traced the source of the call to Life Corp., a Texas telecom marketing company, Formella said, adding that it appeared to be owned by a man named Walter Monk. Formella declined to comment on the potential motivations behind the call, political or otherwise, nor did he say much about the company or its owner.