Fake Trump Photos, Fake Trump Voice

If MLK were alive today, I have no doubt in my mind that he would be close friends with President Trump.

Two men who risked everything for equality. Two men who were spied on by the government.

MLK and DJT would have so much to talk about. pic.twitter.com/nIqR0LqbL5

— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) July 18, 2023

Two of our nation’s greatest advocates for Civil Rights: MLK and DJT. pic.twitter.com/O3TxhqWXiB

— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) July 15, 2023

Matt Novak at Forbes:

The fake images of King and Trump together were created using artificial intelligence software, though it’s not clear precisely which program was used. AI generator tools like DALL-E, Stability Diffusion and Midjourney allow anyone to create a photo-realistic image simply by using a text prompt and describing the scene they’d like to see created. Companies with large photo libraries have filed suit against various image generators this year, including a lawsuit from Getty Images against Stability AI filed in February.

Louis Jacobson and Loreben Tuquero at Poynter:

Never Back Down, a political action committee supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican presidential nomination, used former President Donald Trump’s own words against him in a new ad.

Candidates do that all of the time. In this case, however, the ad-makers pushed the boundaries by manipulating audio to read out loud an attack against Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds in Trump’s voice.

The message spoken in the ad accurately reflects what Trump wrote on Truth Social, but he did not speak those words himself.

The ad criticized Trump for “attacking” Reynolds, a popular fellow Republican from one of the most important early states in the presidential primary calendar.

The post on Trump’s Truth Social platform said, “I opened up the Governor position for Kim Reynolds, & when she fell behind, I ENDORSED her, did big Rallies, & she won. Now, she wants to remain ‘NEUTRAL.’ I don’t invite her to events!”

A viewer wouldn’t know that Trump didn’t say this out loud: Never Back Down took Trump’s words and used artificial intelligence to create audio of a Trump-like voice reading them.

 

Electing Idiots

Liz Cheney:

"What we’ve done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots...

I look at it through the lens of how do we elect serious people? And I think electing serious people can’t be partisan...And part of the problem is we have this closed partisan… pic.twitter.com/FJhv7eYeIq

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) June 27, 2023

From the Hugh Hewitt interview with Francis Suarez: https://t.co/OzgJloODWJ pic.twitter.com/b9LCcwCM4e

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) June 27, 2023

“I'll look at — what’d you call it, a ‘Weeble?’”

— 2024 GOP presidential candidate Francis Suarez on Uyghurs pic.twitter.com/wAW8lGg0IK

— The Recount (@therecount) June 27, 2023

AI and Politics

Emily A. Vogels at Pew:

About six-in-ten U.S. adults (58%) are familiar with ChatGPT, though relatively few have tried it themselves, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March. Among those who have tried ChatGPT, a majority report it has been at least somewhat useful.

ChatGPT is an open-access online chatbot that allows users to ask questions and request content. The versatility and human-like quality of its responses have captured the attention of the media, the tech industry and some members of the public. ChatGPT surpassed 100 million monthly users within two months of its public launch in late November 2022, setting a world record as the fastest-growing web application. Due to these factors, the Center chose to ask Americans about ChatGPT specifically rather than chatbots or large language models (LLMs) more broadly.

Jim Saksa at Roll Call:

AI is already being used in politics. After President Joe Biden announced his reelection campaign, the Republican National Committee released an AI-generated video that envisioned a dystopian future wrought by his four more years in office. In the Chicago mayoral primary earlier this year, a Twitter account posing as a local news outlet posted a deepfake video impersonating candidate Paul Vallas on the eve of the election. And campaigns have used machine-learning models to guide their ad buys on social media platforms like Facebook for years now.

Right now, though, it’s the potential to use large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT to update voter files, perform data analysis and program automated functions that excite political operatives the most. While well-funded Senate or gubernatorial races can afford to hire data scientists to crunch numbers, smaller campaigns rarely have that luxury, said Colin Strother, a Democratic political consultant based in Texas. AI will change that.

“I’m excited about some of the brute work that would be really great to do, but — unless you’re on a big-time campaign, with a ton of money and a ton of staff — you can’t afford to do,” Strother said.

 

"The office is more important than any individual person."

 This Week interview with Asa Hutchinson:

KARL: You suggested recently that if Trump were to get indicted that he should drop out of the race. Do you believe that now that he's been indicted, should he drop out? 

HUTCHINSON: Well, I do. And for a couple reasons. I mean, first of all, the office is more important than any individual person. And so for the sake of the office of the presidency, I do think that’s too much of a sideshow and distraction, and he needs to be able to concentrate on his due process, and there is a presumption of innocence. 

But the second reason is, throughout my eight years as governor and as a political leader, I've always said that people don't have to step aside from public office if they’re under investigation, but if it reaches the point of criminal charges that have to be answered, the office is always more important than a person. And so there's some consistency there. I do believe if -- if we're looking at the presidency and the future of our country, then we don't need that distraction and he needs to be able to concentrate on the legal issues that he faces.