Recently, Donald Trump fans in Florida and Michigan have been auto-generating and spreading around faked “pictures” of Trump surrounded by crowds of Black supporters—and earning significant traction for doing so. Coming at a time when President Joe Biden is worried about losing the Black voters who came out for his 2020 election, the Trump images have become a whole new subgenre of A.I. sludge. And no one in any position of power appears to know what to do about it.
Last month, BBC Panorama reported on the proliferation of these deceitful likenesses. The first example displayed Trump at a Christmas party with his arm around a couple of Black women, one of whom is seen wearing a Pen & Pixel–style tank; another shows him sitting on a house porch with six young Black men, smiling with his hands clasped. Both images gained substantial traction on Facebook, sans disclosure that they were A.I.-generated, and were misleadingly appended as context for stories on Trump’s increasing appeal to Black voters.
What I find interesting about this is that no matter how fake something like this may be it still serves the purpose of suggesting a thought or feeling to someone; it plants a seed. There’s definitely a certain segment of the population more prone to believing fiction (always has been, ie National Enquirer) but the vast majority of us will file things we want to be true into our subconscious where they slowly become non-fiction in our minds. This is how product advertising has always worked. This is how religion works. I mean, everything has the potential to start as something fictitious and become real in our minds. Have you ever told a story about something that happened to you only to realize, or have someone tell you, that it was the plot of a sitcom?
Trump and politics aside, it’s an interesting neurological phenomenon. These are the things we should be studying and teaching to evolve as a species. Though, governments and our corporate overlords would never allow us to actually think for ourselves.
Nobody is going to save this photo and use it as evidence later on. But it will enter the subconscious of some voters to help justify their support of him.
So let’s start posting AI images of Trump getting pegged by hired pornstars and hanging out with neo-Nazis
Actually we probably don’t even need AI for that.
If you really want to stir shit, depict him bent over a toilet in a grungy bar bathroom getting done by a black trans-woman. Or show him looking weepy sitting on his gold toilet as just outside in the bedroom Melania is getting railed by a couple of black guys.
I feel like that would hit a lot of triggers with that crowd.
(Side note: I do not hold the opinion that interracial sex or sex with trans folk should be shameful or fetishized… but they do.)
That’s a good point. You can’t plant a seed anywhere and expect it to blossom. The soil needs to be primed to accept the seed.
I’m in the middle of reading an article about how phones and social media are affecting the mental health of the youth. We all believe this to be a fact yet the scientific evidence actually does not support it. It’s easier to convince people that something’s true when they already feel like it should be true. Where “should be true” (or want to be true) comes from for each individual is something to consider.