Home » News » Elon Musk harshly criticized for spreading a “deep fake” video of Kamala Harris | AI-powered parody of the presidential candidate

Elon Musk harshly criticized for spreading a “deep fake” video of Kamala Harris | AI-powered parody of the presidential candidate

The tycoon Elon Musk received harsh criticism for sharing on your social network X a video ultrafalso o “deepfake” in which uses artificial intelligence to impersonate US Vice President Kamala Harris. This behavior is a potential violation of X’s own policies on this type of synthetic content.

Musk shared a manipulated video of Harris’ campaign, who is emerging as the Democratic presidential candidate after President Joe Biden’s withdrawal, in which A computer-generated voice imitates her and calls the ruler senile. Also, declares that she does not “know the slightest thing about running the country.”

She is also heard saying that as a woman and an African-American, she is the “ultimate diversity hire.”

The video was originally posted by an X profile linked to conservative content creator Chris Kohls and labeled as a “parody.” However, Musk reposted it on Friday, saying only: “This is amazing.“, along with a laughing emoji.

Musk’s post garnered More than 130 million visits and it occurs at a time of growing alarm over artificial intelligence-generated political disinformation ahead of the US presidential election in November.

Harris’s team spoke out about the incident and said: “We believe that the American people want real freedom, opportunity and security. offered by Vice President Harris, not the false and manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”

The tycoon and owner of the social network X (formerly Twitter, which he bought in 2022 for 44 billion dollars) is close to the Republican candidate Trump and came out to publicly support him shortly after the former president was injured in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally.

Other repercussions

The Governor of California, Democrat Gavin Newsom posted on X that Harris’s manipulated video “should be illegal”” and that he would soon sign a bill to ban this type of content.

For its part, Musk responded by assuring him that “parody is legal in the United States,” while including the original video below.

While, Experts said Musk’s post appears to go against X’s policies, which prohibit sharing “artificial, manipulated or out-of-context files that may deceive or confuse people and cause harm.”

“Ignoring the rules of the road (because) he bought the road,” Nora Benavidez, a senior attorney at the Free Press organization, wrote on X, referring to Musk’s apparent violation of the site’s policies.

Besides, Disinformation researchers warned of the danger of misuse of artificial intelligence in a year of major elections around the world, thanks to the proliferation of cheap and easy-to-use online tools that lack sufficient security barriers.

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