DeSantis campaign shares apparent AI-generated images of Trump : NPR
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
June 8, 20233:59 PM ET
Shannon Bond
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A recent video from Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis includes an image with three fake photos of former President Donald Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci hugging. These three images appear to be AI-generated. DeSantis War Room/Screenshot and annotation by NPR hide caption
toggle caption DeSantis War Room/Screenshot and annotation by NPR
A recent video from Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis includes an image with three fake photos of former President Donald Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci hugging. These three images appear to be AI-generated.
DeSantis War Room/Screenshot and annotation by NPR
Artificial intelligence is hitting the campaign trail. This week, a video from Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis included apparently fake images of former President Donald Trump hugging Anthony Fauci. It's the latest example of how rapidly evolving AI tools are supercharging political attacks by allowing politicians to blur the line between fact and fiction.
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The video, posted Monday on Twitter by the Florida governor's rapid response team, slammed the former president's alleged support of Fauci, who has become a punching bag for Republicans for his role in crafting the nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Donald Trump became a household name by FIRING countless people *on television*
But when it came to Fauci... pic.twitter.com/7Lxwf75NQm
— DeSantis War Room (@DeSantisWarRoom) June 5, 2023
In a collage of six pictures of the two men, three appear to be AI-generated fakes depicting Trump and Fauci embracing. The other three are real photos of the two men together in March 2020, according to AFP, which first identified the fakes.
"It was particularly sneaky to intermix the real and the fake images, as if the presence of the real image would give more credibility to the other images," said Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
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The three fake pictures bear multiple hallmarks of AI-generated imagery, including strangely textured and blurred hair, unnatural arm and hand rendering, and nonsensical text on a backdrop purporting to show the White House press briefing room.
"These problems, however, will eventually get resolved and we can expect AI-generated images, and audio and video, to become increasingly more difficult to distinguish from reality," Farid said.
The rapid improvement and deployment of generative AI, which can produce realistic images, audio, video and text, is raising alarms over how it could worsen the spread of misleading claims and propaganda, and be used to create entirely plausible yet false depictions of events that never happened.
This is not the first time the technology has been deployed in the 2024 presidential campaign. The Republican National Committee released an ad in April using AI-generated images to depict a series of imagined crises if President Joe Biden were to win a second term.
Last month, Trump mocked DeSantis's glitchy campaign launch on Twitter Spaces with a fake video featuring apparently AI-generated audio mimicking the voices of the Florida governor, Elon Musk, George Soros, Dick Cheney, Adolf Hitler, Satan and even Trump himself. The former president has previously shared other fakes, including an AI-generated one of himself praying and photoshopped images making fun of DeSantis.
But this week, Trump's supporters called foul on the DeSantis team's use of manipulated media.
"Smearing Donald Trump with fake AI images is completely unacceptable," tweeted Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, retweeted Vance's message. "Those fake AI campaign ads need to be taken down immediately," Greene added.
"This was not an ad, it was a social media post," said a person with knowledge of the DeSantis operation. "If the Trump team is upset about this, I'd ask them why they have been continuously posting fake images and false talking points to smear the governor."
The Trump campaign didn't respond to a request for comment.
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So, the using fake AI generated images for political gain has begun.
Things will get way worse before they get better if these are the types of people we support in politics.
If the public cared about reality none of these people would be running.
The public cares more about The Masked Singer than who their politicians are.
Most people have no problems with Fauci anyway. Only in DeSantis' world, where wearing a mask is worse than dying, is Fauci looked down upon.
I'm talking about the use of AI manipulation in politics and to harass people. It wouldn't take much to railroad someone with a few seconds of digitally altered video and sound either politically or criminally. Criminal attorneys are already using it as a defense to create "doubt".
based upon the gullibility of trump's base, I could have a lot of fun with that shit...
"Things will get way worse before they get better if these are the types of people we support in politics"
This IS going to be a serious problem for US All. We already have so many minions hanging onto outrageous conspiracy theories, without ANY PROOF,in a pathetic attempt to defend the Stupid Goof, just throw into the pool a few more cases of Baby Ruth's watt could ever go wronger will not take much longer
I think we can expect DeSantis to be far ahead of the curve when it comes to everything that makes politics seedy.
Yesterday there were reports that Trump's staff suggested he talk about DeSantis' dick size. It's all sleezy.
Trump would know something about that. He’s feeling it from behind right now.
If you look at his "Truth Social" posts, you can see that "little hands Trump" is already implying that in some of his posts.
I really don't want to.
If you do, I strongly suggest Visine to clean your eyes out. Strong detergent and steel wool for the fingers that typed in the webpage. About 2 hours in the shower should clean everything else up.
Pretty much... I'm sure there is much gnashing of teeth today in MAGAland. I just came across this tweet -
I don't think anyone should be "LMAO" on the death of another, but the rest of the shit is funny AF.
pat's family had his legacy video up on youtube before his corpse had dropped 10 degrees.
oooooh, left hook, upper cut, gut punch...
I'm giggling over here.
Does DeSantis really think this is going to work?
He did pick fight with a multi-billion dollar company and largest employer in the state, so, yeah... probably. He's not the sharpest crayon in the box.
I would expect that Trump and his team will have video of DeSantis praising Fuchi, which BTW is accurate.
Two sleazeballs trying to out-sleaze each other.
Two pigs in a sack fighting to see which one gets eaten last?