Controversy Of Using AI Images In Political Campaigns: DeSantis And Trump Stumbled Deepfakes
JAKARTA - A Bitcoin-supporting US presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis, is reportedly using images produced by artificial intelligence (AI) in an advertising campaign defaming his rival, former US President Donald Trump.
This is happening amid the increasing use of deep-fake generated by AI in political advertising and political movements in recent months.
On June 5, DeSantis' campaign posted a video on Twitter claiming to show Trump's close support for Anthony Fauci, Trump's top medical adviser when he served as President of the United States.
Fauci is a controversial figure among Republicans (GOP) for various reasons, including his handling of federal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic which is considered too much by many people.
Roll the tape 🎥 pic.twitter.com/rf8WGcJmX1
— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) June 10, 2023
Roll the tape pic.twitter.com/rf8WGcJmX1
The video features a collection of real images depicting Trump and Fauci mixed with images apparently produced by AI showing the two hugging. There is even a picture depicting Trump kissing Fauci.
Twitter's Community Notes feature, which is a project to help eliminate the spread of misinformation in a community, adds a marker to the tweet stating that the video contains "a picture generated by AI."
AFP Fact Check, a department within the Agence France-Presse news agency, said the images had "image characteristics generated by AI."
DeSantis and Trump are competing to become presidential candidates from the Republican Party. DeSantis started his campaign last month on Twitter Space and pledged to "protect" Bitcoin. However, the current poll results show that DeSantis is still lagging behind Trump.
The use of AI in the world of politics does not only occur in this case. Several other politicians also used the media generated by AI to attack competitors, and Trump's campaign has also used AI to defame DeSantis.
Shortly after DeSantis announced his candidacy for president, Trump posted a video making fun of DeSantis' announcement on Twitter using deepfakes to create fake Twitter Space featuring DeSantis, Elon Musk, George Soros, Adolf Hitler, Satan, and Trump.
In April, Republicans released ads with their predictions about what the current term of office of the two US Presidents will look like, which is full of images produced by AI that describe a dystopian future.
New Zealand politicians also recently used media created by AI, with the opposing National Party using images produced by AI to attack the ruling Labor Party in several posts on social media in May.
One of the pictures features hospital staff walking around, the other shows several masked men robbing jewelry stores, and a third image depicting a woman inside the house at night. All the images are produced using AI tools.