Tag: republicans
Republicans Drakeford and Yousaf to attend King’s coronation ‘to represent everybody’
Republicans release AI-generated attack ad on President Biden
President Joe Biden announced he was officially running for re-election on Tuesday. And Republicans had an attack ad ready for the occasion. The ad knocks Biden for his culpability in various domestic and foreign policy-related events, with startling visuals for each.
One thing viewers should know: The images in the video are AI-generated.
The video from the Republican National Committee is titled “Beat Biden” and imagines a scenario in which Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris win reelection in 2024. The ad shows completely AI-generated images of Biden and Harris celebrating their election day victory.
It then depicts a number of imagined events with AI-created visuals ostensibly brought about by Biden’s electoral victory, such as China invading Taiwan, hundreds of regional banks shutting down in the U.S., and the city of San Francisco being shut down due to crime.
Republicans aren’t hiding that the video was assembled entirely from images created by AI platforms like Midjourney and DALL-E. “An AI-generated look into the country’s possible future if Joe Biden is re-elected in 2024,” the video description reads on the GOP’s YouTube page. This is seemingly the first time a political ad has been created entirely with AI-generated imagery.
All this flashy AI usage seemingly sidesteps the need to criticize the actual policies of the Biden administration. The Republican critique is instead on events that exist entirely in party members’ own imaginations.
Republicans attack Biden with a fully AI-generated ad
It’s not a huge surprise that the Republican National Committee (RNC) had attack ads ready to go whenever President Joe Biden officially announced his re-election campaign. What’s novel this time is that the video uses imagery generated by artificial intelligence to present the RNC’s vision of what the world may look like if Biden wins again in 2024.
The RNC told Axios it was the first time it had used a video that was made entirely with AI. The ad starts by depicting Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at an election victory party. Although there’s a faint disclaimer in the top-left corner noting that the ad was “built entirely with AI imagery,” there’s a dead giveaway that it’s not a real photo of Biden and Harris — both of the smiling, AI-generated figures have far too many teeth.
The ad goes on to depict several domestic and international incidents that the RNC suggests might happen if the Biden-Harris ticket wins again. “This morning, an emboldened China invades Taiwan,” a fake news announcer says, for instance. The ad goes on to stoke fears of a financial crisis prompted by the closures of hundreds of regional banks, as well as border agents being overrun by asylum seekers and the military taking over San Francisco due to “escalating crime and the fentanyl crisis.”
This particular ad doesn’t stray too far from the kinds of talking points one might expect Republicans to hit in an attack ad. But the video is a sobering bellwether of what we may see more of from political campaigns in the months and years to come. It’s not difficult to imagine AI-generated images depicting outright falsehoods in attack ads.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/republicans-attack-biden-with-a-fully-ai-generated-ad-184055192.html?src=rss
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Congressional Republicans subpoena the FTC for asking Twitter too many questions
The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday subpoenaed the Federal Trade Commission for documents related to its ongoing privacy investigation into Elon Musk’s Twitter, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chair of the committee, authorized the subpoena sent to FTC Chair Lina Khan, accusing the agency of refusing to comply with a handful of other requests the committee has made over the last few months. The demand requires the FTC to hand over all internal communications related to Musk’s October 2022 purchase of Twitter.
In his letter to Khan Wednesday, Jordan accused the FTC of making “inappropriate and burdensome demands” of Musk’s Twitter, calling the agency’s responses to past requests for…