A report stated that supporters of former President Donald Trump have created and disseminated fake images generated using artificial intelligence, with the aim of influencing black voters to vote for the Republican Party.
According to BBC, several fake images depicting black individuals endorsing the former president have been uncovered.
There is no concrete evidence linking these images directly to the Trump campaign.
BBC confirmed that the images were created and shared by Americans, not foreign entities.
Among these individuals, Mark Kay works at a conservative radio program in Florida, along with the program’s team.
Kay and his team created a fabricated image showing Trump smiling next to a group of black individuals at an event. They then posted the image on Facebook, where Kay has over a million followers.
Upon close inspection, the image initially appears real, but detailed examination reveals that the skin tones of Trump and the black individuals look unnaturally glossy, and some fingers appear missing in the hands of some individuals – clear signs that the image was generated using artificial intelligence.
Kay wrote an article about black voters supporting Trump, accompanied by an image implying that these individuals express their support for the former President of the United States.
In the Facebook comments, many users seemed to have believed that the AI-generated image was real.
However, Kay stated that he “did not confirm the authenticity of the image.”
He added, saying: “I did not tell American citizens, look, Donald Trump was surrounded by hundreds of African Americans. Look how much they love him! I didn’t do that.”
He pointed out that if anyone voted because of a picture they saw, it’s their personal problem, not the fault of the post they saw.
A fake image widely circulated on social media showed Trump sitting next to black citizens on the porch of a house.
This image was originally shared through a satirical account constantly posting about the former president, but it did not gain widespread attention until it was re-shared with a new comment falsely claiming that Trump stopped his motorcade to speak with those people and take a picture with them.
BBC reported that the image circulated with the false comment was by a person named Shaggy, a strong Trump supporter living in Michigan.
Shaggy stated in his messages sent to BBC via social media that the post attracted thousands of great followers and kind-hearted individuals.
The post managed to attract over 1.3 million views, according to reports from the social media site “X”.
Cliff Albright, co-founder of “Black Voters Matter” group urging black participation in elections, said that the forged images aim to display Trump’s popularity among blacks. It appears that deceptive tactics targeting blacks are being used, as was the case in the 2020 elections.
These fake images further exacerbate existing concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence on the upcoming US presidential elections scheduled for November.
The US has recently witnessed several events related to this, such as fake phone calls using President Joe Biden’s voice and a doctored video by artificial intelligence showing Donald Trump’s father criticizing him and advising him not to participate in the elections.
In January last month, the prosecutor in New Hampshire announced the initiation of an investigation into attempts to suppress voters through a robocall impersonating President Biden’s voice to discourage them from voting in the state elections. In the robocall, voters heard a voice resembling that of the Democratic president urging them to hold onto their votes for the November elections to the extreme.
As a result of this incident, the Federal Communications Commission in the United States decided to prohibit robocalls that use artificially generated voices through AI programs.
Last month, the “Lincoln Project” was produced and released, a political organization formed at the end of 2019 by some former and current leaders in the American Republican Party, with the goal of preventing Trump’s re-election. A video was created using artificial intelligence showing Fred Trump, the late father of the former president who passed away in 1999, criticizing and humiliating his son.
The video showed Fred speaking to Trump, saying, “Donnie, I’ve always known you would mess things up. You’ve always been stupid.”
Last week, “Meta,” the owner of “Facebook” and “Instagram,” announced its intention to form a team to combat deceptive and misleading artificial intelligence content related to upcoming elections in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The company expressed its concern about how smart technology is being used to deceive voters.
