AI Images of Trump With Black People are Being Circulated by His Supporters
AI-generated images of Donald Trump embracing Black people are being circulated by his supporters online.
Keen observers of AI images will spot the unnatural glow that is the hallmark of pictures created by apps like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion.
But a BBC Panorama investigation found that some Trump supporters have created the images which were passed off as genuine.
“I’m not a photojournalist,” says Florida radio host Mark Kaye who admitted to creating one of the fake images. “I’m not out there taking pictures of what’s really happening. I’m a storyteller.”
The BBC shared two of the images found in its investigation. One shows Trump at a Christmas party surrounded by Black folk; in that image, a man is wearing a cap that has illegible text on it — a telltale sign of an AI image.
In the second picture, Trump is seen sitting on a stoop with six young Black men. A viral tweet, made by a Trump supporter in January, reads, “What do you think about Trump stopping his motorcade to take pictures with young men that waved him down?” The picture was flagged by X’s Community Notes pointing out finger inaccuracies on Trump’s hand.
The BBC Panorama investigation reports that “there’s no evidence directly linking these images to Mr. Trump’s campaign.”
Black voters will play a pivotal role in the Presidential elections later this year and a recent New York Times/Sienna poll suggested support for the Democrats is waning among women, Latinos, and Black people.
Trump and AI Images
With Trump looking certain to secure the Republican nomination, his campaign is ramping up and unlike 2016 — AI images now exist.
Recently, the 45th President of the United States raged against the “fake news” for using artificial intelligence to create an unflattering image of him playing golf. The image was, in fact, manipulated the good old-fashioned way (on Photoshop) around six years ago.
But Trump has shared AI-generated material in his likeness on his social media platform, Truth Social. In January, he shared an AI image of himself praying with six fingers on each hand.
