A few weeks ago, many conservatives lost their absolute shit over a glitch in an AI image generator that made everything diverse to the point that “founding fathers” and popes were depicted as being Black or female. It was kind of sad, given that it’s not like they were depicting specific white male “founding fathers” or popes either, but rather random AI generated white dudes in powdered wigs/tasteful white gowns and tiaras, but I guess all that some of these losers have to cling to is that most of the powerful people in olden times shared their complexion and genitalia, so this really hit them where it hurt.
Naturally, most claimed that their incredible overreaction to this was based not in racism or sexism or deep, deep insecurity, but rather in a steadfast commitment to the truth. They just wanted to see truth in AI … you know, aside from how many fingers people actually have.
And yet! And yet …
A BBC Panorama investigation has revealed that Trump supporters have been creating and sharing super creepy AI pictures of Trump posing with non-existent Black people. This is not a weird, unexpected mistake created by an algorithm, this is actual people using AI to create these images
Via BBC:
One of them was Mark Kaye and his team at a conservative radio show in Florida.
They created an image of Mr Trump smiling with his arms around a group of black women at a party and shared it on Facebook, where Mr Kaye has more than one million followers. […]
"I'm not a photojournalist," Mr Kaye tells me from his radio studio.
"I'm not out there taking pictures of what's really happening. I'm a storyteller."
What story is this exactly? The Emperor’s New Black Friends?
He had posted an article about black voters supporting Mr Trump and attached this image to it, giving the impression that these people all support the former president's run for the White House.
In the comments on Facebook, several users appeared to believe the AI image was real.
"I'm not claiming it is accurate. I'm not saying, 'Hey, look, Donald Trump was at this party with all of these African American voters. Look how much they love him!'" he said.
Except for how that’s exactly what he was doing.
"If anybody's voting one way or another because of one photo they see on a Facebook page, that's a problem with that person, not with the post itself."
Yeah, that’s not why this is messed up. Trump supporters make this and other fantastical photos of him to give themselves owns where no owns are to be found. They like the idea of Black voters ditching Biden for Trump after deciding that Trump is, in fact, very cool and hip. They like to imagine Democratic voters seeing these photos and shaking their fists at the sky and going “How can this be???!?”
It’s not surprising, given that a large part of Trump’s success with these people is that he’s more or less been a Choose Your Own Adventure leader for many of them. If they disagree with something he says, it’s either fake news or “he’s just rallying the base” or they change their mind and figure he must actually be right about it and they must have been wrong all along.
There’s also a strong belief among Trumpers that he has a chance to win with or at least do much better with younger Black men, based on the fact that young men in general have become increasingly misogynistic thanks to Trump himself and influencers/alleged human traffickers like Andrew Tate.
Still, if that were as true as they were hoping, no one would have to AI up any Black friends for Donald Trump, or any other friends for that matter.
PREVIOUSLY:
Oh shit, all those photos of me with unicorns gonna get debunked next. Still, more believable and than the terra-cotta-toned racist letting Black people touch him.
Central Park Five have entered the chat.