a A few weeks ago, Donald Trump thought it would be amusing to accuse US Vice President Kamala Harris of using AI for an image of a crowd of people greeting her at the airport. “Did anyone notice that Kamala cheated at the airport?” Trump asked, exasperated, jabbing his thumb into his phone. “There was no one on the plane and she used AI. […] She should be disqualified because creating fake images is election interference. Anyone who does that is committing fraud on all counts!”
Just as some animals are more equal than others, some politicians are more honest. So when the former president himself posted an apparently AI-generated image this week of what appeared to be the back of Harris’ head brandishing a giant hammer and sickle in front of a huge Communist crowd, he probably didn’t think of it as election interference. Trump has also recently shared AI-generated images of himself, Elon Musk, and Taylor Swift.
These images are worrying, especially considering that most image generators prohibit real people from creating content. But Trump doesn’t appear to be trying to pass these images off as real. This is because he interesting.
Someone on the Trump campaign team has learned to use AI image generators and become a bit more improvisational. Dance Together This isn’t exactly an example of deepfake media aimed at manipulating elections, as many disinformation critics fear. teeth This is an example of a candidate desperately trying to stay in the algorithm. AI generation requires a few prompts and perhaps a paid subscription to the generator. It’s much cheaper and quicker than hiring creative people who have to spend time coming up with ideas and creating them before they’re ready to publish.
AI-generated images and deepfakes are the poor man’s memes. The ones that do succeed are humorous content designed to spread online, created by individuals who know how to embrace the language and culture of the internet and incorporate the zeitgeist into social posts designed to resonate and go viral. Combining text with images and video is a delicate art, and one that the Harris campaign excels at. Everyone on the internet knows about the coconut tree, and those who frequent the internet know Charlie XCX’s praise for “Kamala being a brat.”
In contrast, the AI posts Trump shared are cheesy Algo fodder, not the best in internet humor. Another way he’s experimenting is pairing AI images with real images to lend credibility or just improve comedic potential. The “Accept!” post is accompanied by an image of a Swift fan suggesting “Trump support,” combining a real photo of a woman wearing a “Swift Fan Trump” T-shirt with a satirical AI image of a fan wearing the same slogan T-shirt, and an AI-generated image of Swift dressed as Uncle Sam. The image is captioned, “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” This is the kind of content your family’s prodigal uncle forwards to you, given to him by his buddies because he has nothing else to do.
Trump doesn’t expect or need Swift’s support, so his incredulity is a source of humor. These posts are not meant to convince his audience that Swift really supports him, but to keep the drip-fed content from drying up in his supporters’ Facebook groups and WhatsApp conversations. Trump has also always been a tease. He knows that Swift’s fans will react angrily to his posts. He also knows that stoking this outrage will amplify his content in Truth Social and X’s algorithms and get it picked up by mainstream media. When people call him out for posting such content, some see it as a legitimate way to fight misinformation, but his fans just don’t seem to get the joke. (Of course, if the joke had even a few decent laughs, it would be easier to understand.)
The idea that Harris is a communist, that Trump and Musk are dance buddies, and that even Taylor Swift fans cannot escape Trump’s fans, fits into the narrative of popularity, relatable ease, and fame that Trump prefers to crave. Narratives are far more important than truth, especially in the United States, where political ideology is so powerful that it was one of the most important factors in deciding whether to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Trump’s AI posts are best understood as part of the same seductive mixture of truth and falsehood that has always characterized his rhetoric, rather than outright misinformation meant to be taken at face value. Trump has no interest in telling the truth. He His The truth is, to him, as to his most ardent followers, AI is just a tool — whether he accepts the reality that it can’t tell or take a joke is another matter.
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Sophia Smith Gaylor is a journalist, content creator, and author of Losing It.
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