Scott Eisen/Brandon Bell/Getty Images; Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Anthony Fauci.
CNN
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign released a video on social media that appears to show former President Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci using an artificial intelligence-generated image.
Those images are included in a video posted Monday that first shows Trump firing people as host of the reality show “The Apprentice,” then Trump praising Fauci. Then the voice cuts to explaining why the former director of the National Laboratory could not be fired. Allergy and infectious disease research. At one point, the audio was superimposed over a photo of Trump and Fauci, including a photo of the two appearing to be hugging each other. The words “Real Life Trump” are superimposed over the image.
However, some images have characteristics of AI-generated content. None of these photos were matched by a Google reverse image search. In one photo purportedly of Trump and Fauci embracing in the White House briefing room, the writing on the wall is jumbled, indicating that the image was created using an AI program. there is Trump and Fauci also look somewhat cartoonish in these photos.
Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert and professor of informatics at the University of California, Berkeley, agreed that the images in the ad were generated by AI, possibly from a conference room. We focused on nonsensical text in images that
“This kind of semantic contradiction is still a weakness of generative AI,” says Farid. “However, we expect these issues to be resolved eventually, and it will become increasingly difficult to distinguish between generative AI imagery and reality. No, and certainly not the last. Fasten your seatbelt.”
A DeSantis campaign official told CNN that the video was a social media post, not a paid ad, and that members of the Trump campaign had used fake or manipulated images in the past.
On Thursday afternoon, Twitter added a community note to the post — a contributor-led feature that highlights misinformation on its social media platform — with the caption, “Three stills of Trump hugging Fauci. is an AI-generated image,” warned site users. The rest of the recordings and images in the ad are authentic. ”
Republican Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, a Trump backer, appeared to criticize the video on Twitter on Thursday, writing, “It is totally unacceptable to defile Donald Trump with fake AI images. No, but we are in a new era, so be more skeptical of what you see on the internet.”
But Trump has faced backlash in the past by posting defaced images and videos. During the 2020 presidential election, Trump retweeted to his followers a video of Joe Biden playing a song to an audience on his mobile phone at a rally. The actual version has Biden performing “Despacito,” but the video shared by Trump replaces it with the NWA’s famous anti-police song.
After a failed election campaign announcement on DeSantis’ Twitter space, Trump posted a fake statement that included Adolf Hitler and featured Trump attending a digital event to make a statement. In May, President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. shared a video of a scene in “The Office” in which Michael Scott wore a women’s suit, but the video shows DeSantis’ face as Steve Carell’s. It was processed to fit the character.
The video also comes weeks after DeSantis’ backing super-PAC, Never Back Down, released a video of DeSantis that was edited to add fighter jets flying over the candidate after his speech.
