WASHINGTON WASHINGTON: With the 2024 election approaching, for the first time since generative artificial intelligence became widely popular, experts feared the worst: social media would be flooded with AI-created deepfakes that were so realistic that shocked voters wouldn't know which to believe. So far, that hasn't happened. Instead, what voters are seeing is something far more absurd: a video of former President Donald Trump riding a cat while wielding an assault rifle. A mustachioed Vice President Kamala Harris wearing communist attire. Trump and Harris hugging each other.
AI is playing a major role in the presidential campaign, even if the biggest fears about how it could threaten the US presidential election have yet to be realized. Fake images created by AI regularly circulate around the web, but many of them are so cartoonish and absurd that even the most naïve viewers cannot take them seriously. Still, even these memes can be problematic.
Catchy AI-generated photos and videos, some of which attempt to be funny, have become useful tools for spreading false, sometimes racist messages with an explicit political slant – and candidates and their supporters are among those sharing them on social media. For example, Trump and many of his allies not only repeatedly promoted the unfounded conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, but they also spread related AI-generated memes.
One meme shared by Trump's Truth Social account showed him on a luxury jet surrounded by cats and white ducks. Another showed a group of kittens holding a sign that read, “Don't let them eat us, vote for Trump!” Francesca Tripodi, an expert in online propaganda, said such AI-generated images are new, viral vehicles for pushing age-old anti-immigration narratives.
“The memes that amplify this claim are not humorous at all. When you have elected officials who are using this image as a way to perpetuate racism and xenophobia, that’s a very big problem,” said Tripodi, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Republicans defend the images as lighthearted fun — and as a byproduct of Trump’s personality. “There’s a culture of personality around Donald Trump that encourages this kind of over-the-top communication style that turns things into humorous memes,” said Republican strategist Caleb Smith. “The intent is to entertain, not to deceive. That’s what it should be.”
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