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CNN anchor Jake Tapper aired an AI-generated video of himself during The Lead on Friday to showcase how powerful the technology has become and how it could be distorted for political gain.
Coming out of a commercial break, Jake Tapper showed a video of him generated by a comedian showing how far the technology has come and the dangers the technology poses.
“We are in an unprecedented era where technology has vastly outpaced the ability of the public to recognize deep fakes, and even more so, lapped lawmakers, many of whom, frankly, seem unable to manage their email,” the AI-generated clip stated. “Take, for example, what you’re watching right now. I’m actually not Jake. I’m a deep fake, a deep Jake, if you will, created by comedian Danny Polishuk, who has only been using AI for two weeks. The fact that I seem so real suggests that real mischief and serious damage could be done with this technology were it to be so utilized in the US, as it has been for bad purposes abroad.”
As the real Jake Tapper returned to the airwaves, he shared that AI-generated videos have “slowly been creeping into American political campaigns.”
“Welcome to the Wild West of TV ads where the technology allows falsehoods to be depicted as facts, blazing unethical trails around the world,” the CNN anchor shared. He then showed several other AI-generated clips, including one purporting to show NBC News anchors arguing that there was no point to the Republican presidential primary debates because Donald Trump was going to win the nomination anyway.
“There’s really been little accountability for anyone campaigning whose lies now include fact images that look all too real. I first heard of the comedian who made the AI of me at the top of this segment when he made some deep fakes of me that I wasn’t particularly a fan of. But it sure looked, and it sure sounded, like me. So to help illustrate the problem here, I asked him to make that AI that we showed you.”
