A manipulated video that mimics the voice of Vice President Kamala Harrissaying things she did not say is raising concerns about the power of artificial intelligence to mislead with Election Day about three months away.

The video gained attention after tech billionaire Elon Musk shared it on his social media platform X on Friday evening without explicitly noting it was originally released as parody.

The video uses many of the same visuals as a real ad that Harris, the likely Democratic president nominee, released last week launching her campaign. But the video swaps out the voice-over audio with another voice that convincingly impersonates Harris.

  • @[email protected]
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    14 months ago

    Yeah… I think part of the trouble though is that even if people recognize that calling Biden “a deep state puppet” is not plausible, many people don’t know that it’s possible to realistically synthesize a voice like that, so where do they end up?

    “Well they probably took some other quote she said out of context, she must have been joking when she said that,” or “They must have cut different clips together” or something like that.

    So even people who don’t fully fall for it can still be deceived in a more subtle way. Or as another respondent mentions, over time, you remember her voice saying something dubious, but don’t quite remember where or what. A subtle nudge that can be just as dangerous as buying it at face value.

    • @[email protected]
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      14 months ago

      many people don’t know that it’s possible to realistically synthesize a voice like that

      Indeed, 99% was fabulously wishful of me.

      subtle nudge

      Devious and insidious. Great point.

      • @[email protected]
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        14 months ago

        Yeah like… Maybe 99% (or some high number) would sense that something’s up, but end up with the wrong conclusion. Like how an older family member of mine thought James Cameron’s Avatar had really impressive makeup and costumes and other practical effects… cause he didn’t really understand CGI.

        Where he should have landed was something like “My model of how practical effects work can’t adequately explain this,” but instead, his brain made some smaller-but-more-wrong leaps that led him somewhere weird.

        I think lots of people are going to experience that same kind of thing with AI-driven propaganda, even when they notice that something is up.