Fake photos: DeSantis relies on misleading AI images in the election campaign Three dead people discovered in a residential building in Austria

“fake news!” — the two words are something like Donald Trump’s standard defense against almost any accusation. In the most recent case, they are really appropriate. A recently released video from the Ron DeSantis campaign team accounts for this.

The point of contention is three photos that appear in the video embedded above. They show Donald Trump hugging and even kissing the hated immunologist Anthony Fauci in right-wing circles. Ironically, it says: “Real Life Trump”.

In fact, the photos are anything but lifelike, as the AFP news agency first discovered. In particular, the image in the top left corner can be easily identified as fake even with the naked eye. The White House logo (compare the image just below), mainly the script below, shows typical AI distortions.

But the other two photos are also fakes on closer inspection. Trump’s hands are unnatural and his hair is considerably fuzzier than the rest of his face. Both hands and hair are (to this day) stumbling blocks for AI image generators. But there are more clues: Trump’s right ear shows a significant bulge in the fake, which it in fact does not have. Also, the placement of the stars and stripes on the American flag is incorrect. These are all strong indications that artificial intelligence has been used here.

The AFP submitted the alleged fake photos to three forensic experts. All came to the same conclusion: the three images were produced by an AI image generator.

“Extremely insidious,” describes image analysis expert Hany Farid of the University of California, Berkeley, the fact that the fake images were mixed with the real ones. The other three photos come from the Getty and Reuters photo agencies and the US National Institutes of Health.

The video with the fake photos comes from the Twitter account “DeSanti’s War Room” divided. According to the Washington Post, this is a report from the Fast Response team, which is part of DeSanti’s campaign team. The account has more than 100,000 followers. It is not known whether DeSantis himself or senior members of the campaign team approved the footage.

After publication, the video was flagged as fake images by Twitter users. According to the Washington Post, this is not the first time AI images have been used in a US election campaign. But never before has fake imagery been used so deliberately to deceive – especially one of such high authority. This opens Pandora’s box. Donald Trump’s AI images are just a harbinger of what will happen to voters in democracies in the future.

Tentative efforts to regulate the use of AI already exist. A movement by Democratic MP Yvette Clarke is calling for AI images to be declared as such during election campaigns. However, Republican opposition has cast doubts on its success. Google has already responded. In the case of critical questions, users of the search engine are advised that depending on the topic, the source situation can be difficult.