The GOP used artificial intelligence to generate an ad showing what it says would happen to the United States if President Joe Biden is re-elected in 2024.
Biden announced Tuesday morning he would seek a second term in office with a 184-second video that begins with Donald Trump supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 after their candidate lost the 2020 election. The ad then becomes a message of hope encouraging Americans to defend the nation’s democracy.
“There’s simply nothing we can not do if we do it together,” Biden concludes.
The Republicans responded with a dystopian 32-second counterpunch called “Beat Biden.” That AI-generated video shows a Chinese fighter jet attacking Taiwan, lines of elderly people standing outside shuttered banks and “illegals” storming the U.S. border with Mexico.
“It feels like the train is coming off the tracks,” a narrator says at the end of that ad.
AI’s ability to present computer fabricated imagery as reality has drawn concern from all corners as that technology advances at a seemingly exponential rate.
Technology leaders including Elon Musk — who incorporated an AI laboratory in Nevada on March 9 — signed a letter at the end of the month asking fellow developers to pause the “out-of-control race” to develop “powerful digital minds” that researchers are still working to fully understand.
The CBS news program “60 Minutes” explored the topic in an April 16 program asking, “Is artificial intelligence advancing too quickly?”
Its reporting largely left the question unanswered.
“I am rarely speechless,” longtime host Scott Pelly said. “I don’t know what to make of this.”
The Republican National Committee told Axios Tuesday’s ad was the first 100% AI video the party has produced.
Biden, 80, is the frontrunner to win the Democratic party’s nomination in 2024. His predecessor, Donald Trump, leads the announced and potential GOP candidates in most polling.