X owner Elon Musk is feuding with California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) over an AI-generated campaign video that alters the speech of Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Friday, Musk promoted a video created by the right-wing YouTuber “Mr Reagan” that uses an AI voice generator to depict Harris calling President Joe Biden senile.
“I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate,” the AI audio says. “Thanks, Joe.”
The fake Harris goes on in the nearly two-minute-long video, which uses footage from a real Harris campaign ad, to refer to herself as “the ultimate diversity hire” before stating that any criticism of her is “both sexist and racist.”
“I may not know the first thing about running the country but remember that’s a good thing if you’re a deep state puppet,” the ad continues. “I had four years under the tutelage of the ultimate deep state puppet, a wonderful mentor, Joe Biden.”
Although the text in Mr Reagan’s post described the video as a “Kamala Harris Campaign Ad PARODY,” the footage itself does not include any such disclaimers. And while many would argue that the audio content is unmistakably manipulated and satirical, critics, such as Newsom, took issue with the clip.
“Manipulating a voice in an ‘ad’ like this one should be illegal,” Newsom wrote. “I’ll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is.”
The bill Newsom is referring to is known as “The Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act” and would require major online platforms to label certain content as “inauthentic, fake, or false” during election season. Election-related content deemed “materially deceptive” would be outright banned.
In response, Musk, as well as his right-wing supporters, flooded Newsom’s replies.
Musk himself made reference to his testicles while criticizing Newsom’s remarks.
“I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said parody is legal in America,” Musk said.
Musk followed up by issuing a poll to his more than 191 million followers asking whether Newsom should create an endowed chair at the University of California for the imaginary professor.
Ironically, as noted by the Verge, Musk’s promotion of the altered video without context is actually in violation of X’s policies.
Aside from Newsom, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) also pushed back on Musk by pointing to legislation aimed at curtailing such content.
“If Elon Musk and X let this go and don’t label it as altered AI content, they will not only be violating X’s own rules, they’ll be unleashing an entire election season of fake AI voice and image-altered content with no limits, regardless of party,” Klobuchar said on Threads.
Reacting to the video, the Harris campaign argued in a statement that the “American people want the real freedom, opportunity and security Vice-President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”
As it stands, Musk has not labeled the video as manipulated. Musk’s post highlighting the video has already been viewed nearly 130 million times.
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