The creator of the virus “Trump Gaza” AI-generated video depicting the Gaza Strip as a Dubai-style paradise says it is intended as a political satire for Trump's “megalomaniac idea.”
The video Trump posted to his Truth Social Account last week depicts a family born from the war-torn wreckage of Gaza in a beachside resort town lined with skyscrapers. Trump is seen sipping cocktails with topless Benjamin Netanyahu on the sun lounger, while Elon Musk tearing flatbreads into dips.
The video first appeared in February shortly after Trump announced his Gaza property development plan. He said he wanted to “clean out” a population of about 2 million to create the “Middle Eastern Riviera.”
Trump then posted a clip on his true social platform on February 26th without explanation.
LA-based filmmaker Solo Avital made the video within eight hours while trying out AI tools in early February, saying its spread “surprised my hell.”
“We are storytellers. We are not provocators. We do such satire pieces from time to time. This is the duality of satire. It depends on what context you bring to make punchlines and jokes.
Avital, an Israeli-born American citizen and his business partner Ariel Volmen, is Run Eyemix, a visual company that produces documentaries and commercials, starring Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder and Chris Evans.
Avital said it was experimenting with the Arcana AI platform, “We decided to create a satire about this megalomaniac idea about putting statues on [in Gaza]”To see what the tool can do.
He had been sharing the video clip with a friend, but his business partners posted it on his popular Instagram for a few hours.
The pair shared an early version with Mel Gibson, who was appointed by Trump as Hollywood's special ambassador in January and previously collaborated with Eyemix and Arcana. Gibson told them he shared another video about La Fire with people near Trump but denied sharing a video from Gaza with the president, the creator said.
The first Avital knew the video had reached a larger audience. It was when he woke up to thousands of messages on his phone as a friend warned him of Trump's posts.
Avital said he was surprised by some of the reactions to the video. “If it's a Saturday Night Live skit, the media would have a whole perception of this, and you'd think how wild this president is and how his ideas are kidding.”
He said the experience was enhanced because “how fake news spreads when all networks take what they want and shove viewers with stories attached.”
He hoped that the experience would “cause public debates about rights and mistakes” of generative AI, including what creators' rights are.
But as an expert in the creative industry, he generally welcomed AI and said, “It's the best thing that's happened with creativity in a long shot. Everyone who thinks it kills creativity, we're proof of the opposite.”
Han Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, specializes in identifying deepfakes, said this was “not the first time, not the last.” He said there were gusts of winds created around the LA wildfires, including a video of the burnt Oscar trophy.
He said that Avital's experience would not have been “I just shared it with a friend.” You make something and assume you don't have control,” he said, “you should make people realize.
He added that the video was intended as a political satire but was reused as a “very compelling, visceral” propaganda by Trump.
“It allows you to generate pretty eye-opening content without the skills you normally need. It's really cool and you can't argue,” he said.
However, there is a dark side to this new ability. “This technology is used to create child sexual abuse material, intimate images based on nonconsensus, hoaxes, conspiracy and lies that are dangerous to democracy.”
The video is clearly computer generated, but the video is usually not surreal and warned it was “coming.” “What happens when you reach a point where everything you see online can be fake? Where is our shared reality?”
He believes that AI platforms are responsible for “attaching guardrails” to the technology and preventing it from being misused. “Lott follows the model of 'moving fast, breaking things' and they're breaking things again. We were able to forgive this way of thinking at the dawn of the modern internet. No one thinks this needs more.
