AI Is Fueling a New Kind of Political Propaganda
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Earlier this year, a video of a Legophied Donald Trump spread online. In this cartoonish video, Leiko Trump launches a missile toward Iran. Which is then followed by a wave of Iranian counter strikes. Then a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews, also in Lego form, is shown fleeing an Iranian strike on Tel Aviv, while the country's prime minister, Lego Benjamin Netanyahu, runs to an underground bunker as American Lego soldiers are shown being brought home in coffins draped by American flags. To be clear, the video clip has nothing to do with the actual Lego group. The Danish toymaker that makes the popular plastic bricks children have been playing with since nineteen fifty eight. It was created by an Iranian entity called Explosive Media.
Which has said it produces content without outside influence. But the clip was circulated by the country's state broadcasters under the control of its military. And it didn't stop there. The videos were shared so widely they even reached my American feet.
As you can probably guess, the Lego videos were created using artificial intelligence tools. Since then, as America's midterm elections near, there's been a wave of AI generated political content popping up on social media feeds in the US as well. Today we'll look at what happens to our sense of reality. When political figures and bad actors use AI to fill our feeds with targeted, biased, and politically motivated content. I'm Nicole Nguyen, personal tech columnist at the Wall Street Journal. It's Saturday, August eighth. This is the second episode of our special series AI and the Blurring of Reality, where we're examining how the rapid rise in generative AI could be fundamentally altering how we perceive our world.
AI slop is a global phenomenon, and it's a local one too, one that landed this primary season. If you're in the US, you've probably come across a deep fake. An AI made image or video featuring an often hyper realistic impersonation. One notable deepfake showed James Tallerico, the Democratic Senate candidate from Texas, singing a rendition of My Favorite Things, praising transgender children.
What is the AI‑driven “Lego” video that sparked the discussion about political propaganda?
Boys in white dresses with blue satin sashes, girls dusted with hormones till they grow moustaches, changing the gender of all your offspring.
The video wasn't real. It was created by the Trump linked political action committee Citizens for Sanity in support of Talarico's opponent, Republican Ken Paxton. Over in California, a fan-made video depicted Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt as a heroic Batman.
I'm just one man.
Battling a villainous, Thanos-like version of his political opponent, the incumbent mayor Karen Bass.
This is impossible.
Maybe Spencer Pratt should have played Iron Man, because in this fight, Thanos won. And if you haven't seen any of the superhero movies in the last decade, all you need to know is Karen Bass advanced to the November runoff. These are just a few examples of a growing wave of AI-generated clips in politics. Not all of them clearly fake, like that showdown between Batman and Thanos.
So I study adversarial abuse, understanding how bad actors manipulate technology and social technology systems.
Rene Doresta is an associate professor at Georgetown University. You may recall hearing from her in last week's episode. She says the flood of AI content in our feeds is causing people to be unsure of what's real and what is not. That can result in a perpetually skeptical mindset and make people especially wary of videos that contradict their existing beliefs.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:06
2
What is the AI‑driven “Lego” video that sparked the discussion about political propaganda?
3:06–9:44
3
How are AI‑generated deepfakes being used in U.S. election campaigns?
9:44–12:42
4
Why do experts say AI makes propaganda cheaper, faster and more targeted?
12:42–15:57
5
What role do AI‑crafted multilingual robocalls and AI‑generated images play in modern political messaging?
15:57–17:10
Speakers
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